Steve Balestrieri
With Luhansk Taken, Russia Turns Its Sights On Donetsk, Ukraine – Ukraine’s Armed Forces confirmed on Sunday that its troops were forced to withdraw from the city of Lysychansk, or run the risk of having its forces becoming encircled. By taking the city, Russia now controls all of Luhansk province.
The Russian Defense Ministry has said that its forces now have “full control” of the industrial city. The taking of Lysychansk represents “the liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” the ministry’s statement said, using the self-styled name of Moscow’s proxy separatists.
Putin’s Victory: What Does it Mean?
This is another significant step in Russia’s aim in capturing all of the industrial heartland of the Donbas. And the Russians quickly turned their attention to Donetsk province, unleashing massive artillery strikes on the cities in that province.
Ukraine’s armed forces said in a Facebook post, “Continuing the defense of the city would have led to fatal consequences. In order to preserve the lives of Ukrainian defenders, a decision was made to withdraw.”
Luhansk’s regional governor Serhiy Haidai said that the Russians are expected to launch attacks next to capture the cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut. Sloviansk had a pre-war population of about 100,000 people and was the scene of heavy fighting in 2014 when Russian proxy separatists briefly took the city before being pushed back by Ukrainian forces. And sporadic fighting has taken place there since.
“They attacked the city with unexplainably brutal tactics,” Haidai said adding pictures in a post on his Telegram channel app page. He cited that personally, it was painful for him as not only does he serve as the regional governor, but he was born there and that it is his home.
“There was a chance to hold Lysychansk for longer, but at what cost? To hold out there for another two weeks? Then Russian troops would have made a breakthrough from the Bilohorivka, Popasna, and Komyshuvakha side and encircled our troops in Lysychansk, and we would have lost the whole group,” Haidai said in an interview with CNN.
“It is clear that it is very painful, very difficult, but now the boys are alive, the equipment is intact, and everyone is able to continue fighting the Russian army,” he added.
Donetsk, Ukraine Coming Under Heavy Shelling:
The Russians pounded the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, and Kharkiv on Sunday with MLRS missile systems taking a heavy toll on the civilian population. Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk province (oblast), said that in Sloviansk six people were killed, including a nine-year-old child and 20 more were wounded.
He said the “massive shelling” by the Russians was making life difficult for the citizens there. “During the day they damaged a hotel and residential complex, in the evening they destroyed a road, targeted a school and the territory of a kindergarten and a clinic,” Kyrylenko said in a post on his Telegram channel app.
Sloviansk and Kramatorsk about 50 miles from Lysychansk. The capital city of the province, Donetsk city, as well as Mariupol, have already fallen to Russian forces earlier in the invasion. Kramatorsk was the scene of a Russian missile attack back in April.
In that attack, a Russian Tochka-U missile known in the West as the SS-21 short-range ballistic missile loaded with cluster munitions hit the crowded train station in the city killing 50 people, including five children. That attack also wounded 98 more people including 16 children.
Horrific photos from the scene showed bodies and luggage strewn about the train station. It was reported that 38 people died at the scene and 12 more died after being transported to the area hospital.
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