Russia controls a fifth of the Ukrainian territory with especially bloody combat in the eastern region of Donbas and the strategic city of Severodonetsk, priority objectives of Moscow.
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Just before reaching the hundred days (Friday) of this conflict, which is going to last according to Western countries, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski recognized that the invading troops control 20 percent of his territory.
(EU hits Russian oil and banking with sixth package of sanctions)
If before the war, the Russian or pro-Russian forces controlled 43,000 km2 of the country, including the Crimean peninsula and a third of Donbas, now they hold almost 125,000 km2, he acknowledged before the Luxembourg Parliament.
Since February 24, they have advanced in the east and south, especially along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov coastlines, and already control a strategic coastal corridor connecting southwestern Russia with Crimea.
His lightning offensive to topple the pro-Western government in kyiv thwarted, Moscow focuses on a war of attrition to conquer the Donbas mining basinwith an especially fierce battle at Severodonetsk.
The administrative capital of the Lugansk region is the scene of street fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops who, according to the regional governor, occupy 80% of its territory.
“Today we are fighting and grabbing for every meter of the Lugansk region,” Lugansk Governor Sergei Gaidai said on Friday. “Since a hundred days, [los rusos] they destroy everything that differentiated the Luhansk region,” he declared, assuring that more than 400 km of roads, 33 hospitals, 237 rural clinics, almost 70 schools and 50 maternity hospitals were lost.
Backed by arms shipments from the United States and its Otam allies, the Ukrainian armed forces have managed to hold off the larger and better-equipped Russian army, turning the conflict into a war of attrition.
“We must prepare for the long term (…) because what we see is that this war has now become a war of attrition,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after meeting with US President Joe Biden. .
The other Donbas region, Donetsk, is not exempt from hostilities, especially in Slovianskabout 80 km west of Severodonetsk, whose inhabitants are desperately fleeing the city, where there is no water or electricity.
“The situation is getting worse, the explosions are getting more and more intense and the bombs are falling more and more often,” Gulnara Evgaripova, an 18-year-old student boarding an evacuation bus, told AFP. Faced with the Russian steamroller, the Ukrainian army, which loses between 60 and 100 soldiers daily according to Zelensky, is waiting for the rapid arrival of the advanced Himars missile systems promised by the United States.
Probably to delay these shipments of military assistance, Russia on Thursday bombed several railway lines in the Lviv region (west), where Western weapons for Ukraine usually arrive.
The Defense Ministry also claimed to have “stopped” the arrival of foreign “mercenaries” who have joined the Ukrainian military, inflicting heavy losses on them that dropped their number from 6,600 to 3,500.
In the regions under its control, Russia is trying to impose its rule and is suggesting possible referendums in July to annex the conquered areas, as it did in 2014 to take over the Crimean peninsula.
In this sense, the pro-Russian authorities of the Zaporizhia region (south) announced that they had approved a decree to seize Ukrainian state properties such as “land, natural resources or infrastructure of strategic sectors of the economy.”
AFP
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