The Russian gains in recent days indicate a shift in the developments of the war, which has entered its fourth month, and it seems that the Russian army is on the verge of extending its control over all of the Lugansk region in the Donbass.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced that its forces and allied separatist forces now control the whole of Lyman, a railway junction site located west of the Seversky Donets River in the Donetsk region adjacent to Lugansk.
However, Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hana Maliar said that the battle for Lyman continues, ZNUA website reported.
In its daily intelligence report, the British Ministry of Defense said that Russian forces would likely attempt to cross the river in the coming days in the next phase of the offensive on Donbass.
Severodonetsk, about 60 km from Lyman on the eastern side of the river, is the largest city in Donbass still under Ukrainian control, and is now under fierce attack from the Russians.
“Reuters” quoted the Ukrainian police as saying, on Saturday, that “Severodonetsk is constantly under enemy fire.”
Russian artillery was also bombing the Lyschansk-Bakhmut road, which Russia needs to control to encircle Ukrainian forces.
Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Lugansk region, which together with Donetsk makes up the Donbass region, said Friday that Russian forces have already entered Severodonetsk, adding that Ukrainian forces may have to withdraw from the city to avoid capture.
Russian forces are making slow but steady progress in Donbass, having failed to capture the capital, Kyiv, shortly after their military operation, and large parts of Donbass were already under the control of Moscow-backed separatists before the war.
destroyed buildings
Gaidai reported that about 90 percent of the buildings in Severodonetsk were damaged, with 14 high-rise buildings destroyed in the recent bombing.
It was not immediately possible to independently verify the information.
On the other hand, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continued a defiant tone in his nightly address to his people, saying: “If the occupiers think that Lyman and Severodonetsk will be theirs, they are wrong. Donbass will be Ukrainian.”
The oil dilemma
The Russian gains in eastern Ukraine come in the wake of the withdrawal of its forces from the areas around Kiev, and the Ukrainian counter-attack that pushed its forces to retreat from the city of Kharkiv, the second largest Ukrainian city.
On Saturday, the Ukrainian General Staff said that several Russian strikes hit nearby areas and infrastructure near Kharkiv.
On the diplomatic front, European Union officials said a deal could be reached by Sunday to ban Russian oil shipments by sea, which make up about 75 percent of the bloc’s supply, but not through pipelines, a compromise to persuade Hungary to start a new round of sanctions on the EU. Russia.
Zelensky criticized the European Union for delaying such a ban, but his country also received a steady supply of arms from allies.
In the latest such delivery, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Saturday that Ukraine had started receiving “Harpoon” anti-ship missiles from Denmark and self-propelled howitzers from the United States.
#Russian #forces #close #control #Lugansk #region