On Friday, Ukraine has completed 100 days since Russia’s invasion, with fierce fighting raging across the east, with Moscow forces tightening their grip on Donbas. In a grim milestone, Kyiv announced that Moscow now controls a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and parts of the Donbas it captured in 2014.

After being pushed back around the capital, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army has set its sights on occupying eastern Ukraine, sparking warnings that the war could drag on. After talks at the White House with US President Joe Biden, NATO Director-General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Thursday that Ukraine’s allies needed to prepare for a difficult “war of attrition.”

Moscow’s military is making progress despite slower-than-expected progress, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky telling Luxembourg lawmakers that about 20% of Ukraine’s territory is now in Russian hands. Thousands have been killed and millions forced to flee since Russia’s February 24 invasion. According to Zelensky, as many as 100 Ukrainian soldiers are killed on the battlefield every day.

Street fighting took place in Severodonetsk, the industrial centre of Lugansk in the Donbas. Russia already controls about 80% of the strategic city, but its defenders are stubbornly insistent, with Luhansk region governor Sergiy Gaiday vowing those Ukrainian forces will “fight to the end”.

Russian soldiers opened fire on administrative buildings and warehouses storing methanol at the Azot factory in Severodonetsk, one of the largest chemical plants in Europe.