Fighting intensified over the weekend for Lisichansk, Ukraine’s last major stronghold in Ukraine’s strategic Eastern Province. Luhanskand advisor to the President Volodymyr Zelensky Suppose the city may collapse.
Russian forces seized Svirodonetsk, the sister city of Lisichansk on the opposite side of the Siversky Donets River, last month, after some of the heaviest fighting of the war.
Russia’s ambassador to the pro-Moscow self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, Rodion Miroshnik, told Russian television, “Lsychansk has been brought under control,” but added: “Unfortunately, it hasn’t been liberated yet.”
Russian media showed video of Luhansk militia waving flags and cheering on the streets of Lisichansk, but Ukraine National Guard spokesman Ruslan Muzychuk told Ukrainian television that the city remained in Ukrainian hands.
“Now fierce fighting is taking place near Lysychansk, although, fortunately, the city is not surrounded and is under the control of the Ukrainian army,” Muzychuk said.
Zelensky’s adviser, Oleksey Erestovich, stated that the Russian army had finally crossed the Siversky Donets River and were moving north towards the city.
“It’s really a danger. We’ll see. I don’t rule out any of the many consequences here. Things will become more clear in a day or two.”
“If Lisichansk is taken, strategically it becomes more difficult for the Russians to continue their offensive. The front lines will be flat and there will be a frontal attack rather than a flank.”
He said the Russians would have to concentrate on six major cities in the industrialized eastern Donbass region and with each their army would become more and more thin.
“The more Western weapons that are exposed, the more the picture turns in Ukraine’s favour,” he said.
Ukraine has repeatedly called for more weapons from the West, saying its forces have suffered heavy losses.
Elsewhere, Mayor of Mykolaiv, which borders Odessa’s important Black Sea port, Oleksandr Senkevich, reported powerful explosions in the city on Saturday.
“Stay in the shelters!” He wrote on the Telegram messaging app as soon as the air raid siren sounded.
The cause of the explosions was not immediately clear, although Russia later said it had attacked an army command post.
Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield reports.
Ukrainian officials said Friday that a missile struck an apartment block near Odessa, killing at least 21 people. A shopping mall was hit on Monday in the central city of Kremenchuk, killing at least 19 people.
Zelensky on Friday condemned the attacks, saying the missiles were “conscious, deliberately targeted at Russian terror, and not by mistake or accident.”
‘Very hard way’
In his nightly televised address on Saturday, Zelensky said it would be a “very difficult road” to victory, but the Ukrainians must maintain their resolve and “aggressive…” damage so that every Russian remembers That Ukraine cannot be broken.
Kyiv says Moscow has intensified missile attacks on cities far from the main eastern battlefields and deliberately targeted civilian sites. Ukrainian troops on the Eastern Front meanwhile described intense artillery barrages on residential areas.
Thousands of civilians have been killed and cities have been leveled since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Russia’s denials that it targets civilians.
Russia is seeking to pull Ukrainian forces out of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in the Donbass, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv since Russia’s first military intervention in Ukraine in 2014.
Read more: Germans urged to prepare for possible gas shortage amid Russia’s war
Soldiers on a break from fighting and speaking in Konstyantynivka, a market town about 115 km (72 mi) west of Lysychansk, said they were, for now, keeping the supply road to the embattled city open, despite Russian bombardment. have been successful.
“We still use the road because we have to, but it is within range of the Russian artillery,” said one soldier, who was resting nearby, eating sandwiches or ice cream.
“The Russian strategy right now is to open up any building we can find ourselves in. When they destroyed it, they moved on to the next one,” he said.
Reuters journalists spotted an unexploded missile hitting the ground in a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of the Donbass city of Kramatorsk on Saturday evening.
The missile fell in a wooded area between residential tower blocks. Artillery fire and several large explosions were heard earlier in the evening in central Kramatorsk.
Despite being battered in the east, the Ukrainian military has made some progress elsewhere, forcing Russia to withdraw from Snake Island, a Black Sea area southeast of Odessa, which Moscow called at the start of the war. was captured in
Russia used Snake Island to blockade Ukraine, which is one of the world’s largest grain exporters and a major producer of seeds for vegetable oils. The disruptions have helped fuel a rise in global grain and food prices.
Russia, which is also a big grain producer, blames Western sanctions for the crisis that are hurting its exports.
(Reporting by Reuters Bureau; Writing by Lincoln Feast, Edmund Blair, Ron Popsky and David Brunstrom;)