Ukraine reports fierce fighting in Toretsk as Russia steps up pressure

(Reuters) - Outmanned Ukrainian forces were fending off assaults by Russian troops inside the strategic city of Toretsk, Kyiv's military said late on Wednesday, as Russia continues its grinding offensive in Ukraine's east.

Kremlin troops have been capturing village by village in Ukraine's industrial heartland in a campaign to wear down key defences and threaten transit routes that are critical to Kyiv's forces there.

Street fighting was raging in Toretsk, a front-line city since 2014, with Russian troops plowing forward and "completely erasing" buildings and structures, military spokesperson Anastasia Bobovnikova told Reuters.

"This forces our troops to move around, since there is nothing to hold onto in those sectors," said Bobovnikova, a spokesperson for the "Luhansk" Operational Tactical Group. "This is a scorched-earth tactic."

Capturing hilltop Toretsk, military analysts say, would allow Moscow to further obstruct a supply line that connects the operational rear with Ukrainian forces in much of the east.

Russian forces are also pressing on the strategic city of Pokrovsk, which sits at the other end of that route.

More than one thousand residents remain in Toretsk, out of a pre-war population of around 60,000, but evacuating them is "extremely difficult" because of indiscriminate Russian shelling, Bobovnikova added.

After being pushed from the capital Kyiv and parts of the south and northeast in their February 2022 invasion, Russian forces refocused on capturing the industrialsied Donbas, which covers the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

The advance of Moscow's forces, like the capture of former eastern bastion Vuhledar last week, has underlined Russia's vast superiority in men and materiel as Ukraine pleads for more weapons from Western allies.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will meet NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in London on Thursday, Britain said, a boost for Ukraine after a summit of its main military backers was cancelled so that U.S. President Joe Biden could focus on Hurricane Milton.

(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa; Writing by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)