Kyiv: An adviser to the President of Ukraine said that Ukraine’s special forces remained in Svyarodonetsk, directing artillery fire against Russian-backed troops, as the city dealt a major blow to Kyiv as it struggles to take control of the country’s east. does. Ukraine’s shelling forced Russian troops to suspend the evacuation of people from a chemical plant in Svyarodonetsk on Saturday after Moscow’s forces took over the city, the Tass news agency quoted local police as saying. The fall of Svyarodonetsk, weeks after the bloodiest battle of the war, is the biggest defeat for Ukraine since it lost control of the southern port of Mariupol in May.
Ukraine called its withdrawal from the city a “tactical withdrawal” to fight the high ground at Lysichansk on the opposite bank of the Siversky Donets River. Pro-Russian separatists said Moscow’s forces were now attacking Lisichansk.
The fall of Svirodonetsk – once home to over 100,000 people but now a wasteland – turns the former battlefield after weeks in which Moscow’s enormous gains in firepower were only slowly gained.
Russia will now seek to capture more land on the opposite bank, while Ukraine hopes that the price Moscow paid for capturing the ruins of the small town will leave Russian forces vulnerable to counterattack.
President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed in a video address that Ukraine would win back its lost cities, including Svyarodonetsk. But acknowledging the war’s emotional loss, he said: “We have no idea how long this will last, before we see victory on the horizon, and how many blows, losses and efforts will be required.”
Kyrillo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, told Reuters that Ukraine was carrying out “a strategic regrouping” by pulling its forces out of Svyarodonetsk.
“Russia is using tactics … it used in Mariupol: wipe the city off the face of the earth,” he said. “Given the conditions, it is no longer possible to defend in ruins and open plains. Therefore Ukrainian forces are moving to higher ground to continue defense operations.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that “as a result of successful offensive operations” the Russian army had gained full control of Svyarodonetsk and the nearby city of Borivske.
Zelensky’s senior adviser, Oleksey Erestovich, said that some Ukrainian special forces were still in Svirodonetsk directing artillery fire against the Russians. But he made no mention of the forces which were giving any direct resistance.
Russia’s Interfax news agency, citing a representative of pro-Russian separatist fighters, said Russian and pro-Russian forces had entered Lisichansk across the river and were fighting in urban areas there.
rain of missiles
Russia also launched missile strikes across Ukraine on Saturday. The chief of the local regional army said at least three people were killed and others were buried under rubble in the town of Sarny, about 185 miles (300 km) west of Kiev. Administration.
Russia denies targeting civilians. Kyiv and the West maintain that the Russian military has committed war crimes against civilians.
Russian missiles also struck elsewhere overnight. “48 cruise missiles. At night. All over Ukraine,” said Mykhailo Podolik, adviser to the President of Ukraine, on Twitter. “Russia is still trying to intimidate Ukraine, creating panic.”
Ukraine’s top general Valery Zaluzny wrote on the Telegram app that recently arrived, advanced US-supplied HIMARS rocket systems were now deployed and hitting targets in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
Seeking to tighten the noose on Russia, US President Joe Biden and other group of seven leaders attending a summit in Germany from Sunday will agree an import ban on new gold from Russia, a person familiar with the matter said. The source told Reuters.
Britain is set to guarantee a further $525 million in World Bank loans to Ukraine later this year, taking the total financial aid this year to $1.5 billion, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said ahead of the G7 meeting.
“Ukraine can and will win. But they need our support to do that. Now is not the time to give up on Ukraine,” Johnson said in a statement on Saturday.
‘It was scary’
In the Ukrainian-held Donbass town of Pokrovsk, Elena, an elderly woman in a wheelchair from Lisichansk, was among dozens of evacuees who arrived by bus from frontline areas.
“Lysychansk, it was a scary one, last week. Yesterday we couldn’t take it anymore,” she said. “I already told my husband that if I die, please bury me behind the house.”
Europe’s biggest land conflict has entered its fifth month since World War II, when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent thousands of troops to the border on February 24 and started a conflict that killed thousands and killed millions. Uprooted. It has also led to an energy and food crisis that is rocking the global economy.
Since Russian forces were defeated in an attack on the capital Kyiv in March, it shifted its focus to the Donbass, an eastern region made up of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Svyarodonetsk and Lisichansk were the last major Ukrainian strongholds in Luhansk.
Moscow says Luhansk and Donetsk, where it has supported the insurgency since 2014, are independent countries. It demands that Ukraine hand over the entire territory of the two provinces to the separatist administration.