Ukrainian troops will have to be withdrawn from the predominantly Russian-occupied city on the Severodonetsk battlefield, the regional governor said on Friday.
Some of the heaviest battles of the Russian invasion so far took place in Severodonetsk, where street-to-street battles raged for months as Russia slowly and diligently took more and more positions.
“There is no point in staying in positions that have been torn to pieces for many months just to stay there,” Sergei Gaidai said on television.
He said troops in the city had already been ordered to move to new positions, but did not say whether they had already done so or where they were going.
The battle for the city is key for Russia to gain control of the last Ukrainian-held section of Luhansk. Only the city of Lisichansk will be left in Ukrainian hands if Severodonetsk falls.
The Luhansk region is one of the two provinces that make up Donbass, an area that Russia and its separatist allies in eastern Ukraine are seeking to take completely as one of their military goals.
“In many respects, the fate of Donbass is being decided there,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Severodonetsk recently.
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