Ukraine said on Friday that Russia had captured most of Lyman, but its forces were blocking Sloviansky’s advance.
Ukraine said on Friday that Russia had captured most of Lyman, but its forces were blocking Sloviansky’s advance.
Ukrainian forces may have to retreat from their last pockets in the Luhansk region, a Ukrainian official said, as Russian troops pressed an advance east that shifted the momentum of the three-month-old war Is.
A withdrawal could bring Russian President Vladimir Putin closer to his goal of taking full control of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine. His troops have gained land in two areas collectively known as the Donbass, destroying some towns in the barren land.
Serhi Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk, said that Russian troops who had entered Ukraine’s largest Donbass city, Svyarodonetsk, were still trying to trap Ukrainian forces for several days in the largest Donbass city still occupied by Ukraine, Although saying that the Russian army will not be able to capture the Luhansk region “as analysts have predicted”.
“We will have enough strength and resources to defend ourselves. However, it is possible that we may have to retreat so as not to be surrounded,” Gaidai said on Telegram.
Gaidai said that 90% of the buildings in Svyarodonetsk were damaged in the latest shelling, destroying 14 high-rise buildings.
Russia’s separatist proxies said they controlled Lyman, a railway hub west of Svyarodonetsk. Ukraine said Russia had captured most of Lyman, but its forces were preventing a move southwest of Sloviask.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine was protecting its land “as much as our current defense resources allow”. Ukraine’s military said on Friday it had thwarted eight attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk, destroying tanks and armored vehicles.
“If the occupiers think that Lyman and Svyerodonetsk will be theirs, they are wrong. Donbass will be Ukrainians,” Zelensky said in an address.
‘poor performance’
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces have carried out eight attacks in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the past 24 hours. It said Russia’s attacks included artillery strikes in the Svyarodonetsk region, with no success.
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think-tank, said Russian forces had launched direct attacks on Svierodonetsk’s built-up areas, but would struggle to take land in the city itself.
“Russian forces have performed poorly in operations in built-up urban areas throughout the war,” he said.
Russian troops advanced last week after penetrating Ukrainian lines in the town of Popasna, south of Svyarodonetsk. Britain’s defense ministry said Russian ground forces had captured several villages northwest of Popasna.
Accessed by Reuters journalists on Thursday in the Russian-occupied territory, Popasna was in ruins. The bloated body of a dead man in combat uniform could be seen lying in a courtyard.
Resident Natalia Kovalenko had left the basement where she was taking refuge in the rubble of her flat, its windows and balcony blown away. He said a bullet hit the courtyard, killing two and injuring eight.
“We’re tired of being so scared,” she said.
Russia’s eastern gains follow the withdrawal of its forces from the approach of the capital, Kyiv, and a Ukrainian counter-offensive, which pushed its forces back from Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv.
Russian forces opened fire on parts of Kharkiv on Thursday for the first time in several days, killing nine people. The Kremlin denies targeting civilians in what it calls its “special military operation”.
Ukraine’s General Staff said on Saturday that there had been no new attacks on the city, but there have been several Russian attacks on surrounding communities and infrastructure.
In the south, where Moscow has occupied territory since the February 24 offensive, including the Mariupol port, Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to impose a permanent regime.
struggle to leave
In the Kherson region to the south, Russian forces were beefing up security and shelling Ukraine-controlled areas, the region’s Ukrainian governor Henady Laguta told the media.
He said that the humanitarian situation in some areas is critical and people are finding it very difficult to move out.
Police said 31 people, including 13 children, were evacuated from the Luhansk region on Friday.
On the diplomatic front, EU officials said an agreement could be reached by Sunday to ban the delivery of Russian oil by sea, which accounts for about 75% of the bloc’s supply, but not by pipeline, a victory over Hungary and An agreement to clear the way for new sanctions.
Zelensky has accused the EU of imposing sanctions on Russian energy, saying the bloc was funding Russia’s war and the delay “only means more Ukrainians are being killed”.
In a telephone call with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehmer, Putin stuck to his line that the global food crisis caused by the conflict can only be resolved if the West lifts sanctions.
Nehamer said Putin expressed readiness to discuss a prisoner swap with Ukraine, but added: “If he is really ready to negotiate it is a complicated question.”
Russia and Ukraine are both major grain exporters, and the blockade of Russia’s ports has halted shipments, raising global prices. Russia accuses Ukraine of mining the ports.
Russia justified its attack to ensure that Ukraine does not join the US-led NATO military alliance. But the war has left both Sweden and Finland neutral during the Cold War, applying to join NATO in one of the most significant changes to European security in decades.