The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Russian troops have surrounded the eastern Ukrainian city of Lisichansk, Ukraine’s last major stronghold in the Luhansk region. Russia has focused on driving out Ukrainian forces from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the Donbass, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv since Russia’s first military intervention in Ukraine in 2014. The Defense Ministry said its troops had captured villages around Lisichansk. , besieged the area, and were now fighting Ukrainian troops inside the city.
“Russian troops and units of the Luhansk People’s Republic are fighting inside Lisichansk, completely defeating the encircled enemy,” the ministry said in a statement.
Calls to the Ukrainian General Staff and the Defense Ministry remained unanswered. The ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had attacked military infrastructure in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, as well as a base used by foreign fighters on the outskirts of Mykolaiv in the country’s south.