KYIV, Ukraine aEUR Russian forces pounded Lysychansk city and surrounding areas in an all-out effort to seize the last bastion of resistance in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region, the governor stated Saturday. According to a presidential advisor, the fate of the city will be decided in the next two days.
Ukrainian fighters spent weeks fighting to defend the city, and keep it from falling into Russia like neighboring Sievierodonetsk a week ago.
Luhansk Gov. said that “over the last day the occupiers opened fire with all possible weapons.” Serhiy Haidai stated Saturday via Telegram messaging app.
Lysychansk is separated from Sievierodonetsk by a river. Oleksiy Arestovych (an adviser to the Ukrainian president) stated late Saturday that Russian forces had crossed the river from the northern side, creating a “threatening” situation. Although they hadn’t reached the city’s center, he said that control over Lysychansk was up for grabs by Monday.
Volodymyr Nazarenko was the second in command for the Svoboda battalion and was part of the June 24, retreat from Sievierodonetsk. He said that the Russians had “methodically destroyed” the city. He described how Russian tanks attacked one building after the other, and then moved on to the next one.
“So they use these strategies where barrages ammunition are used to demolish the city and turn them into a burned-down desert,” Nazarenko stated from Bakhmut, a relative safety to the southwest.
He said that Russian troops had “obliterated all potential defensive positions with constant gunfire and burnt down forests to prevent trench warfare.”
Luhansk is the neighboring province of Donetsk, which are the two Donbas regions where Russia has concentrated its offensive since it pulled back from northern Ukraine and Kyiv in the spring.
Since 2014, pro-Russian separatists hold portions of the eastern provinces. Moscow recognizes all of Luhansk or Donetsk to be sovereign republics. The government of Syria announced Wednesday that it will also recognize the sovereignty and independence of these areas and establish diplomatic relations.
Four people were killed in Russian-fired cluster munitions on Friday night in Slovyansk (a Donetsk major city still under Ukrainian control), Mayor Vadym Liakh announced via Facebook. He stated that the areas hit were not likely to be used as military targets.
Russian ally and neighboring Belarus claimed that Ukraine launched missiles at military targets in Belarus several days ago, but they were all intercepted by the air defence system. It was a provocation, President Alexander Lukasenko said. He also noted that there are no Belarusian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. The Ukrainian military did not immediately respond.
Belarus is home to Russian military units, and was used by Russia as a staging area for its invasion. Just hours before Lukashenko’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, Russian long-range bombers launched missiles against Ukraine from Belarusian skies.
Lukashenko has refused to allow his army to join the conflict. During their meeting, Putin revealed that Russia would supply Belarus with Iskander M missile systems and reminded Lukashenko how dependent Russia is on his government’s economic support.
Lukashenko claimed Saturday that two Belarusian truck driver were also killed in Ukraine. Ukraine claimed that the truckers were in a gas station when the Russian airstrike struck it in March. But Lukashenko claimed that the organs of the victims were removed to conceal evidence they had been shot.
Investigators in Ukraine also combed through the rubble of a Russian airstrike that struck residential areas near Odesa, killing 21 people early Friday.
Iryna Venediktova, Ukrainian Prosecutor General, stated that investigators were reclaiming fragments from missiles which struck an apartment block in Serhiivka. She said that they were also measuring to determine the trajectory and identify the “specific people responsible for this terrible war crime.”
Larissa Andruchenko claimed that she was making tea in the kitchen when the blast opened the doors. She thought that the propane gas tank had exploded and called her husband.
“And then, the lights went out and it was a nightmare. She said that glass was flying in the kitchen and everything was flying between us.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, said that three anti-ship missiles were fired at a “normal residential building,” a nine-story building housing approximately 160 people. He said that four members of a family who were staying at a beach campsite were also among the victims.
“I stress: This is deliberate Russian terror and not an accident or mistake in missile strikes,” Zelenskyy stated.
The British Defense Ministry stated Saturday that anti-ship missiles launched from air generally lack precision against ground targets. According to it, Russia was likely using these missiles due to a lack of better weapons.
Although the Kremlin claims that Russia is targeting fuel storage sites, military facilities and military facilities, and not residential areas, missiles have also been fired at an apartment building in Kyiv, and a shopping center in the Kremenchuk central city.
Kremenchuk Mayor Vitaliy Maltskyy stated Saturday that the death toll from the attack on the mall had risen to 21 while one person was still missing.
Ukrainian officials interpreted Odesa’s missile attack as a payback for Russian troops being evacuated from Odesa, a Black Sea island that had symbolic and strategic importance in the conflict that began with Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow described their departure from Snake Island’s island as a “goodwill gesture” in order to unblock grain exports.
Other developments
aEUR” Dylan Healy was arrested at a Russian checkpoint south of Zaporizhzhia on April 25, according to the director of a charity that assists the family of a British soldier captured in eastern Ukraine. Dominik Byrne is the director of operations at Presidium Network. Healy, Dominik Byrne said that Healy was an aid worker who has no connections to either the British or Ukrainian military.
Healy is one of at least five foreigners being held by separatists. Four others are Britons. They accuse them, among other things, of being mercenaries fighting in Ukraine. Three of them were sentenced to death. Healy was charged on Friday.
