Ukrainian soldiers said they were advancing in intense street fighting in the city of Sievierodonetsk on Thursday, but their only hope for reversing the situation is more artillery to compensate for Russia’s massive firepower.
In the south, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said new territory was seized in a counterattack in Kherson province, targeting the largest territory captured since Russia’s invasion in February.
The battle between the ruins of the small industrial town of Sievierodonetsk became one of the bloodiest of the war as Russia concentrated its occupying power there. Both sides claim to inflict huge losses on the enemy.
Sivierodonetsk and the twin cities of Lysychansk, on the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets River, are the last Ukrainian-controlled parts of Luhansk province, which Moscow plans to take as one of its main war targets.
Petro Kusyk, commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda National Guard Battalion, said in a rare update from Sievierodonetsk that the Ukrainians were drawing the Russians into street battles to neutralize the Russian artillery advantage.
“Yesterday was a success for us – we launched a counterattack and in some areas we were able to push them back a block or two. In others they pushed us back, but only with a building or two,” he said. interview on TV.
“Yesterday the invaders suffered serious losses – if every day was like yesterday, soon everything would be over.”
But he said his forces were suffering from a “catastrophic” lack of counter-battery fire to fire Russian weapons.
He said that the acquisition of these weapons will change the battlefield and allow the Ukrainians to defend themselves from Russian artillery.
“Even without these systems we are resisting well. There is an order to hold our positions and we are holding them. It is incredible what surgeons have done to save soldiers’ lives without the proper equipment.”
About 10,000 civilians, about a tenth of the pre-war population, are still trapped inside the city, Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said on Thursday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his video speech to the nation in the evening, stated that the fate of the Donbas region was determined in Sievierodonetsk, and that it was “a very brutal, very difficult war, perhaps one of the most difficult of this war.”
To the west of Sievierodonetsk, Russia is advancing from the north and south, trying to trap Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region, which includes Luhansk and the neighboring Donetsk province, and blasting Ukrainian-held cities with artillery fire in their path.
source: Noticias
[author_name]
