Ukraine, fresh from a series of victories in the north-east, is now at the gateway to the eastern Donbas region and may still have its best chance of removing the Russian forces that have expanded their control over the area after a brutal fighting this summer.
Lysychanskwhich just three months ago fell to the Russians in a demoralizing setback for Kiev, could be the next big city in Ukraine’s sights.
That a battle to recapture Lysychansk is even conceivable shows how much things have changed in the east in the few weeks since Ukraine launched a surprise counter-offensive in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
The relative speed of their victories stands in stark contrast to Russia’s harsh summer assault on the Donbass.
“The offensive movement of our army and all of our defenders continued,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an upbeat speech overnight, saying 450 settlements in Kharkiv had been recaptured.
“There are new settlements released in various regions.”
“Fierce fighting continues in many areas of the front,” he said.
Over the weekend, Ukraine recaptured the city of Lymana strategic railway junction in the north of Donetsk, one of the two territories that make up the Donbas, and has continued to push east towards Lysychansk.
To seize Lysychansk and its sister city of Sievierodonetsk, both located north of Luhansk, the other territory that includes Donbas, Russia struck Ukrainian forces with artillery for weeks before street-to-street fighting finally forced the withdrawal of Ukraine.
Before the fall of Lyman, Ukrainian soldiers gradually surrounded the city, which fell last week after only a few days of heavy fighting.
Analysts point to Ukraine’s success in disrupting Russian supply routes as the key to its momentum.
When Russia was expelled from Kharkiv last month, it lost control of its rail hub in the city of Iziowhich made it very difficult for Moscow to resupply its forces further south in the Donbas and left them vulnerable.
Recruitment
Russia announced a surprise military recall last month, with Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu saying on Telegram Tuesday that Moscow had recruited. more than 200,000 soldiers of the expected 300,000.
Although they had little time for training, new troops from the recent mobilization started arriving in Ukraine, the defense ministry said Monday.
Ukrainian soldiers were greeted by hungry and ill-equipped Russian troops, some with few weapons to defend themselves.
It is likely that the Russian military will have to decide whether to transfer resources from other parts of the front to slow Ukraine’s advance or risk losing more ground in the Donbass.
Some of the closest Russian reinforcements are located about 40 kilometers southeast of Lyman, around the Ukrainian-controlled city of Bakhmut.
The Wagner group, a notorious paramilitary unit directly headed by the Kremlin, punched Ukrainian defenders but failed to take over the city.
But the question remains how long the Ukrainian momentum can last.
Some Ukrainian soldiers in the province of Kharkiv spoke about it in recent days exhaustion after weeks of incessant fighting.
Ben Barry, senior researcher on land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said the advance will most likely reach a “tipping point” after which the offensive would be difficult to sustain because the forces would have to be rotate and reintegrate. troops.
Ukraine’s achievements did not alleviate the danger to civilians as the fighting continued to be felt.
A convoy of people fleeing Svatove to Luhansk was attacked in recent days and 24 people, including 13 children, were killed, Ukrainian authorities said.
And on Monday, a Russian bombing of a hospital in the Kupiansk district of the Kharkiv region killed a doctor and injured two nurses, according to the head of his military administration, Oleh Syniehubov.
Russia’s battlefield losses have come even as Moscow says four Ukrainian regions where fierce fighting continues are now part of Russia, a move that has been targeted. widespread international ridicule.
Taxa Russian state news agency reported Tuesday that the country’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, had approved a law to annex Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as two provinces of southern Ukraine, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
The Russian president is likely Vladimir Putin sign the law, which follows the referendums in the provinces denounced as a farce by Ukraine and its Western partners.
Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that, faced with the “Russian attempt to annex territories”, he approved a decision by the country’s security council on the “impossibility start negotiations ”with Putin.
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Source: Clarin
