War in Ukraine: with more deaths and destruction, Russia’s offensive in the east intensifies

Russia’s advance in the Donbas region may be imminent an important stage: Invading troops control the center of Lyman, a major railroad junction, and restrict their grip on major cities still in Ukrainian hands.

The invaders began that invasion Severodonetskalmost surrounded and half destroyed by the invasions.

“They want to turn the region to ashes,” warned Volodimir Zelensky, describing the growing suffering of his troops in the east of the country.

And even British Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted that Russia’s progress was “slow but visible”

The inertia of the conflict seems to have changed in recent days, as the Russians regained strength in their offensive. The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported that “the occupation forces opened heavy fire throughout the line of contact and hit deep in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions,” seeking to occupy the north and southern districts.

The complete conquest of this town of 20,000 inhabitants would open the way for the Russians in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and give additional strength to the siege of Lyssychansk, and especially to Severodonetsk.

Destruction and murder

Luhansk now more rubble than standing buildings of Russian artillery. 60% of houses were destroyed, said the head of the military administration Oleksandr Stryuk, saying that since the war began “1,500 people were killed.”

In addition, between 12,000 and 13,000 people remained in the city, which is “surrounded by two -thirds”, with “fighting reaching the gates” of the city in the city center. Across the region, at least five civilians were killed in 24 hours.

The intensity of the Russian offensive in the Donbas was followed by concern in kyiv: Zelensky denounced that the occupiers “wanted to ash Popasna, Bakhmut, Lyman, Lysychansk and Severodonetsk”, as they did in Mariupol, and launched another call on western partners to send long -term weapons to counter enemy artillery.

In the Black Sea, the Russians now have control over a land corridor that extends into the Crimea, and right from the peninsula that merged in 2014, the army is sending military equipment to build. third line of defensefaced with a possible retaliatory attack by the Ukrainian.

In addition, according to Odessa authorities, the coast is filled with at least 400 mines, to also prevent the export of goods (and especially grain) from the ports.

Corpses in Mariupol

Meanwhile, in the martyred city of Mariupol, the deaths of a siege that lasted more than three months continue to be counted. About 70 bodies were found in a former factoryThe mayor’s adviser Petro Andryushchenko said.

The corpses will go to a mass grave, as happens in other cities, awaiting a decent burial at the end of the war.

In addition to the Donbas, the russians insist on attacking ukraine’s military infrastructure in other parts of the country. One raid targeted a barracks in the Dnipro, where local authorities said “10 dead and 35 wounded”, probably all soldiers.

In Kharkov, the second largest city in Ukraine, 50 km from the Russian border, aerial warning sirens sounded again at dawn, after a bombing that left 9 dead and 19 injured, all. civilians.

Sabotage?

Echoes of the conflict continue to be felt as far as Russia, albeit because of the supposed frequency of fire affecting different areas of the country, starting in Moscow.

This time, a rubber and furniture warehouse caught fire south of the capital, the reasons yet to be clarified as videos of the thick column of smoke spread around the world. Just a few days later, a fire broke out in one of the most important military research centers.

From the beginning of the war, the fire affected several Russian institutions and plants more or less directly related to war operations. These facts feed the thesis of the sabotage of Ukrainians

Source: ANSA

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