LISICHANSK, Ukraine – As Russia is about to encircle Severodonetsk, a city that is crucial to its goal of capturing eastern Ukraine, and with a neighboring city that is directly in Moscow’s sights, the question of how realities are in place will shape the next phase of the war remained motionless more pressing Sunday for Ukraine’s Western allies.
“The Russians are making every effort to cut off Severodonetsk,” regional governor Sergei Haidai told the Telegram, a news app, on Sunday. “The next two or three days will be significant.
On the other side of the river, the Ukrainians, who were trying to stand firm against the Russians in Lisichansk, had the advantage of good terrain – but dwindling weapons to defend it.
“If there is no help with military equipment, of course, they will drive us out,” said Alexander Voronenko, 46, a military police officer based in Lisichansk. “Because every day the equipment is destroyed. You need to replace it with something new. “
Severodonetsk on Sunday. The city is almost surrounded, an official said. Credit … Tyler Hicks / New York Times
Ukrainian authorities are urging NATO allies to speed up the supply of longer-range weapons and the urgent need to replenish even more basic supplies, including ammunition.
But with the momentum of the war, which is changing more decisively in favor of Russia, Ukraine’s allies, their economies are threatened and their resolve tested, they may soon be forced to face much more fundamental questions than what weapons. to provide, including whether to put pressure on Ukraine to reach a peace agreement with Russia or to risk Russian escalation with more aggressive military support.
“There has always been a sense that when the center of gravity shifts south and east, there will be potential for greater gains for Russia based on greater mass and existing territorial acquisitions,” said Ian Lesser, a former U.S. official. who heads the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund.
“But this raises more serious long-term questions about the nature of the conflict, Ukraine’s goals and Western goals in relation to them,” he said.
While the Ukrainians wait, they suffer horrific losses in the Donbass region, where the battle for Severodonetsk is taking place. According to Ukraine’s own estimates, it loses between 100 and 200 people a day as bloodshed there worsens, in part because of Russia’s material superiority and in part because of Ukraine’s determination to fight, despite the increasingly bleak picture in the east.
Burial in Bucha on Saturday of a soldier killed by a Russian sniper. Ukraine is losing up to 200 troops a day, officials say. Credit … Nicole Tung for The New York Times
These Western supplies, which have reached the front line, are neither as abundant nor as complex as Ukraine would like. And some do not even manage to take part in a battle hit by Russian strikes before they can even be deployed.
Late Saturday, Russian missiles struck a military depot in western Ukraine, injuring nearly two dozen people and destroying anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile systems delivered to Ukraine by the United States and the European Union, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry.
The Ukrainian government has invested troops and resources in its efforts to keep Severodonetsk, a strategically important industrial city and the last major urban center in the Donbass region of Luhansk, which has not yet fallen. Russian forces destroyed two bridges leading to the center of Severodonetsk and shelled the rest, which is an important supply line for Ukrainian forces, the regional governor said.
Now the battle may be about to move to its sister city, Lisichansk.
On Sunday, from the top of a hill in Lisichansk, it was clear why the recent focus of the Russian offensive seemed easier to defend than other parts of Donbass: it is high. The vast plains of the region are rich in natural resources, but altitude is rare.
This leaves the Ukrainian defenders of the city in an advantageous position.
Ukrainian soldiers bathe in a stream in the Donetsk region on Sunday. Credit … Tyler Hicks / New York Times
But it is impossible to defend Lisichansk, a city with a pre-war population of about 100,000 people, without the supplies needed to keep Ukrainian tanks and artillery loaded with shells and the thousands of soldiers garrisoned there, fed and equipped.
This is the challenge facing the Ukrainian military now that Russian forces are nearing the end of their campaign to seize neighboring Severodonetsk. Even after the capture of Severodonetsk, Ukrainian troops could most likely defend Lisichansk, in part because the Seversky Donets River separates the two cities – unless Russian forces fail to cut off the city’s supply routes.
On Sunday, it was clear that the Russians were trying to achieve just that by constantly advancing from the southeast.
Sheaves of smoke and burning fields, where artillery strikes had set the ground on fire, enveloped Lisichansk in a semicircle on Sunday afternoon. Frequent blows of incoming and outgoing fire echoed through the city as civilians dragged empty bottles to be filled by a fire jury equipped with clean water filters.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “in many respects the fate of our Donbass is being decided” around Severodonetsk and Lisichansk. But the first city is already practically surrounded, and if Russian forces continue to advance toward a mixture of asphalt and uneven field roads that serve as the only logistics pipeline in the second, Ukrainian authorities will have to make a strategic decision: withdraw or risk Lisichansk encirclement as well. .
Celebration of Orthodox Pentecost at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Kyiv on Sunday. Credit … Nicole Tung for The New York Times
“We are waiting for reinforcements,” said Mr Voronenko, a military police officer, as a group of about 20 residents began moving towards evacuation vans. “It has partly arrived in the last few days in the form of artillery. And if we get more, then we can probably keep them. “
But nearly four months after Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian military is running out of ammunition for its Soviet-era artillery and is not receiving enough ammunition, fast enough, making Lisichansk’s fate even more uncertain.
For European countries, the question of how to defend Ukraine is now both tactical and political – and raises issues close to home.
Several EU members worry that they have sent too much of their own ammunition to Ukraine and are lagging behind in replenishing their arsenals. As the bloc’s foreign policy and defense are not integrated, European leaders have been forced to try to procure their own military supplies.
A Ukrainian soldier bids farewell to his family in Kyiv on Sunday before being sent to the front line. Credit … Nicole Tung for The New York Times
European Union officials say they will try to use nine billion euros ($ 9.5 billion) to jointly procure military equipment, trying to allay fears that Ukraine’s military support is dangerously weakening its defense capabilities elsewhere in Europe.
The bloc is also grappling with the broader and politically tense question of how to move forward with Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union. This decision could support Mr Zelenski at home and perhaps give him more political flexibility for ceasefire talks, but it could also make Russia deepen or worse.
During a visit to Kyiv on Saturday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said her administration would give an opinion on whether the bloc should grant Ukraine candidate status by the end of the week. Ultimately, however, the decision is a deep political one, to which EU leaders will be called upon to respond at a summit on June 23rd and 24th in Brussels.
Most candidate countries need more than a decade of reforms and negotiations to become a full member of the EU.
If Ukraine is given the green light, its way forward is likely to be difficult, given the nation’s plight since the start of the war and the poor governance and corruption that marked it even before the invasion.
Sacks of sand at the entrance to the metro station in Kyiv on Sunday. About two million Ukrainians who fled the invasion have returned, officials say. Credit … Nicole Tung for The New York Times
“Whatever the territorial reality on the ground, having this deepening prospect of Euro-Atlantic integration for Ukraine is very important,” said Mr Lesser of the German Marshall Fund. “And to the extent that it encourages the growing prospect of an increasingly western Ukraine against Russia, which has deviated to an Asian imperial position, the political contrast between the two actors will become sharper.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff reports from Lisichansk and Matina Stevis-Gridnef from Brussels. Natalia Ermak contributed to a report from Lisichansk.
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