Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared victory in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region, a day after Ukrainian forces pulled out of their last remaining bastion of resistance in the province.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin in a televised meeting on Monday that Russian forces had taken control of Luhansk, which, along with neighboring Donetsk province, forms the industrial heart of Ukraine’s Donbass.
Shoigu told Putin that the “operation” ended on Sunday after Russian troops captured the town of Lisichansk, the last stronghold of Ukrainian forces in Luhansk.
Putin, in turn, said that the military units “which took part in active combat operations and achieved success, victory” in Lugansk, “should rest, increase their combat capabilities.”
Retreat was chosen, not encirclement, says Ukraine
Putin’s declaration came as Russian forces sought to push their offensive deeper into eastern Ukraine after the Ukrainian army confirmed its forces had pulled out of Lisichansk on Sunday. Luhansk Governor Serhii Haidai said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from the city to avoid an encirclement.
“There was a risk of encircling Lisichansk,” Haiday told The Associated Press, adding that Ukrainian troops could have held out for a few more weeks but would potentially have paid too high a price.
“We were able to do a centralized withdrawal and evacuate all the injured,” Haiday said. “We got all the equipment back, so from that point the recall was well organized.”
In this handout photo released by the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday, Russian soldiers place a Russian national flag on top of an administrative building after capturing the eastern village of Bilokhorivka, eastern Ukraine. (Press Service of the Ministry of Defense of Russia/Associated Press)
The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian forces were now focusing their efforts on pushing towards the Siversk, Fedorovka and Bakhmut lines in the Donetsk region, about half of which is controlled by Russia. The Russian army has also stepped up shelling of the key Ukrainian bastions of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, deeper into Donetsk.
On Sunday, six people, including a nine-year-old girl, were killed by Russian shelling in Slavyansk and another 19 people were wounded, according to local authorities. Kramatorsk was also shelled on Sunday.
An intelligence briefing on Monday from Britain’s Ministry of Defense backed the Ukrainian military’s assessment, noting that Russian forces would “now almost certainly” move to capture Donetsk. The briefing said the conflict in Donbass was “scratching and exhausting” and unlikely to change in the coming weeks.
Moscow lacks the resources to quickly acquire land
Although the Russian military has a huge advantage in firepower, military analysts say it does not have a significant superiority in troop numbers. This means Moscow does not have the resources to make quick ground gains and can advance only slowly, relying on heavy artillery and rocket fire to soften Ukrainian defenses.
WATCH| Part of the Ukrainian army fighting on the front line of Donbass:
A look at the war in Ukraine, from the front line in Donbass
As the fighting in eastern Ukraine continues, every weapon and every ounce of determination counts for this Ukrainian unit fighting on the front lines in the Donbass region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the capture of all of Donbas a key goal in his war in Ukraine, now in its fifth month. Moscow-backed separatists in Donbas have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014, when they declared independence from Kyiv following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. Russia formally recognized the self-proclaimed republics days before its February 24 invasion of Ukraine.
In his overnight video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the withdrawal but vowed that Ukrainian forces would fight their way back.
“If the command of our army withdraws people from certain points on the front where the enemy has the greatest fire superiority, in particular this applies to Lisichansk, this means only one thing: we will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in supply of modern weapons,” Zelensky said.
Since failing to capture Kyiv and other areas in northeastern Ukraine at the start of the war, Russia has focused on the Donbass, unleashing fierce shelling and engaging in house-to-house fighting that has devastated the region’s cities.
Russia’s invasion has also devastated Ukraine’s agricultural sector, severing supply chains for seeds and fertilizers needed by Ukrainian farmers and blocking grain exports, a key source of income for the country.
Grain exports are expected to reach only 35% of the total in 2021
In its intelligence report on Monday, Britain’s Ministry of Defense pointed to Russia’s blockade of the key Ukrainian port of Odessa, which has severely limited grain exports. They predicted that Ukraine’s agricultural exports would reach only 35 percent of the 2021 total this year as a result.
As Moscow pushed its offensive into eastern Ukraine, areas in western Russia came under attack on Sunday in a resumption of sporadic apparent Ukrainian strikes across the border. The governor of Belgorod region in western Russia said fragments of an intercepted Ukrainian missile killed four people on Sunday. Two Ukrainian drones were shot down in the Russian city of Kursk, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced.
In this handout photo, taken from a video released by the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry on Monday, a man places a Russian national flag on the balcony of an apartment building in Lisichansk. (Press Service of the Ministry of Defense of Russia/Associated Press)
In other developments:
- Ukrainian soldiers returning from the front line in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region – where Russia is waging a fierce offensive – describe life during what has become a grueling war of attrition as apocalyptic.
- Two Russian planes took off from Bulgaria on Sunday carrying dozens of Russian diplomats and their families amid a mass expulsion that has seen tensions rise between the historically close nations, a Russian diplomat said.
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