Siversk, Ukraine, July 4, 2022 (AFP) – The Russian army continues with its bombing in eastern Ukraine this Monday (4) and advances with its plan to conquer the entire Donbass region after the strategic city of Lysychansk has fallen. An international conference is starting in Switzerland to draft a roadmap for the rebuilding of Ukraine.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced on Sunday night that it was withdrawing from Lysychansk, which has seen heavy fighting in recent weeks, recognizing the “superiority” of Russian troops in this part of Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.
After the capture of Lysychansk, which was mostly Russian-speaking and was at the center of Donbass’ plan to conquer this industrial basin, which since 2014 has been partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists, the Russian military now appears to have focused its efforts on the two regions, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Major cities further west that have been brutally hit since Sunday.
In his speech on Sunday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to keep up with appearances and pointed to other war fronts in the Kharkiv (northeast) or Kherson (south) region, which he said was making “progress” in the country.
“The day will come when we will say the same for Donbass,” Zelensky said.
In Sloviansk, a city with a population of almost 100,000 before the war, six people were killed, including a nine-year-old girl, in Russian bombings. “Her name was Eva. She would have been 10 in August,” Zelensky said in her speech.
Ukrainian authorities asked the population to leave this area. The front line is just a few kilometers from Sloviansk.
In Siversk, about 20 km west of Lysychansk, Ukrainian troops want to establish a defensive line between this city and Bakhmut to protect the highly symbolic Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Residents told AFP that the bombings in Siversk have intensified in recent days.
“The enemy has intensified bombing raids on our positions in Bakhmut,” the Ukrainian army general staff said in a bulletin.
Nobody in Ukraine dares to predict how long the war will last.
“At first, analysts said the war would end quickly. Then they said it would end on Constitution Day (June 28), then on Independence Day (August 24), and now they’re not saying anything,” Lyudmila Yashchuk told AFP. 55-year-old resident of Kyiv.
– Reconstruction – In the city of Bucha, which was the target of extremely violent attacks at the beginning of the war, some residents began planting flowers at the feet of buildings or rebuilding their gardens. But most residents do not dare to think about rebuilding the city with the outcome of the war so uncertain.
In the city, the stigma of war is visible around every corner: broken windows, gunfire, perforated walls.
“We go to bed not knowing if we’ll wake up tomorrow,” says Vera Semeniuk, 65. “Everyone’s back and they’re starting to fix the houses, a lot of them are installing new windows. If it happens again, it’ll be terrible and we’ll have to start over.”
While the outcome of the war remains uncertain, the Lugano Conference, scheduled for before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, will try to outline the future rebuilding of Ukraine on Monday and Tuesday.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Schmigal and Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk arrived in Lugano on Sunday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen needs to hold a meeting to lay the foundations for the “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine, despite the impossibility of envisioning the end of the war and the calculations for the rebuilding of the country. that fluctuates from tens and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Robert Mardini, director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said real rebuilding would have to wait until the war was over, but it was vital to give “a positive perspective to civilians”.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will present a grand plan to help Ukraine over the long term, with a stake in rebuilding the country once the war with Russia is over.
IOC President Thomas Bach announced that the International Olympic Committee will triple its direct financial assistance to Ukrainian athletes for the 2024 Paris Games and subsequently the 2026 Winter Games.
Speaking with the Ukrainian president, who visited Kiev on Sunday, Bach also said that “it is not time” to change the position of the IOC, which recommends removing Russian and Belarusian athletes from all international sporting events.
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source: Noticias
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