The Russian army completed the conquest of the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk on Saturday and managed to enter the neighboring Lysychansk counties after a weeks-long devastating offensive to take the Donbass region in the east of the country.
Ukraine also faced a “major bombing” in the north, backed by Russia’s ally Belarus, which could equip it with nuclear warhead-capable missiles “in the coming months,” as Russian President Vladimir Putin explained.
The city’s mayor, Oleksandre Striuk, said Severodonestk was “fully occupied by the Russians” a day after Ukrainian authorities announced that they had withdrawn from the city to defend Lysychansk.
Pro-Russian separatists recently announced the seizure of the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk and the “withdrawal” of 800 civilians who took refuge there. The governor of the Luhansk region, of which Severodonetsk is a part, said that “90% of the city was damaged and 80% of the houses had to be demolished”.
The separatists also announced that their forces and the forces of the Russian army had entered Lysychansk, where “street fighting” took place.
“Some companies in the city have already been taken over. There is currently street fighting,” Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Marochko, a representative of the pro-Russian separatists, told Telegram.
The fall of these two cities could facilitate the advance of Russian troops further west of the Donetsk region towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Luhansk and Donetsk form the Donbass, a region partially controlled by pro-Russians since 2014.
“Drag Belarus to War”
“A massive missile bombardment hit the Chernihiv region” in the north, the northern command of Ukrainian troops said. “20 rockets hit the city of Desna from the territory of Belarus and from the air.”
Belarus has so far not been formally involved in the conflict, but has provided logistical support to the Russian invasion that began four months ago. Like Russia, it has been subject to Western sanctions.
In the afternoon, after meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, Putin announced that Russia would equip its ally with missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and adapt its aircraft to carry nuclear payloads.
“In the coming months, we will hand over to Belarus the Iskander-M tactical missile systems, in conventional and nuclear versions, capable of using ballistic or cruise missiles,” Putin said at the beginning of his television interview with Lukashenko in Russia.
“Today’s bombing is directly related to the Kremlin’s efforts to drag Belarus into the war in Ukraine as a joint fighter,” the General directorate of Ukrainian intelligence services under the Defense Ministry said in Telegram.
These announcements come ahead of the G7 meeting of Western economic powers, which will begin in Germany on Sunday, and a NATO summit in Madrid Tuesday-Thursday to discuss how to increase support for Ukraine in a war that is not expected to end soon.
Ukraine is calling for heavy weapons to neutralize the Russian advance and “stabilize” the situation in Donbass.
“Slow War”
Experts point out that the Russian advances in the east did not mean a radical turnaround in the war.
“The big picture – a slow battle of established positions – has hardly changed,” researcher Ivan Klyszcz of the Estonian University of Tartu told AFP.
“The withdrawal was probably premeditated and could be considered tactical,” he said, emphasizing that the Ukrainian resistance allowed Kiev to consolidate its rear guard.
European Union (EU) leaders gave Ukraine and Moldova, another former Soviet republic, candidate status to join the bloc on Thursday.
The Russian government saw in these decisions a Western maneuver to geopolitically control Moscow.
EU initiative “The seizure of the CIS space [Comunidade de Estados Independentes, que agrupa várias ex-repúblicas soviéticas] Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova continues to actively take control of Russia,” said.
source: Noticias
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