Russia pours in more troops and presses attack in the east

By ADAM SCHRECK
Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia is attacking cities and towns in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland and pouring more forces into the country. It intensified assaults along a front hundreds of miles long Tuesday in what officials on both sides described as a new phase of the war. After a Russian push to overrun the capital failed, the Kremlin declared that its main goal was the capture of the eastern Donbas region. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces there for eight years. If successful, that offensive would give President Vladimir Putin a vital piece of Ukraine and a badly needed victory in the now 7-week-old war.