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RU.S. forces have taken control of about a third of Ukraine’s Severodonetsk city, but their attack lasted longer than expected, a Moscow-backed separatist leader was quoted as saying in a TASS news report.

Russian shelling turned much of Severodonetsk into ruins, and Russian troops entered the southeastern and northeastern outskirts of the city, but Ukrainian defenses slowed a broader Russian campaign in the Donbas region.

“We can already say that a third of Severodonetsk is already under our control,” the head of the Luhansk People’s Republic Leonid Pasechnik said in a report on Tuesday morning, TASS quoted him as saying.

Mr Pasechnik told Russia’s state news agency that clashes were raging in the city, but Russian forces were not advancing as fast as might be expected.