প্রকাশ: 26/06/2022
Russian forces were seeking to swallow up the last remaining
Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Luhansk region, pressing their momentum
after taking full control Saturday of the charred ruins of Sievierodonetsk and
the chemical plant where hundreds of Ukrainian troops and civilians had been
holed up.
Russia also launched dozens of missiles on several areas
across the country far from the heart of the eastern battles. Some of the
missiles were fired from Russian long-range Tu-22 bombers deployed from Belarus
for the first time, Ukraine's air command said.
The bombardment preceded a meeting between Russian President
Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, during which
Putin announced that Russia planned to supply Belarus with the Iskander-M
missile system.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said
late Saturday that Russian and Moscow-backed separatist forces now control
Sievierodonetsk and the villages surrounding it. He said the attempt by
Ukrainian forces to turn the Azot plant into a “stubborn center of resistance”
had been thwarted.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk province, said
Friday that Ukrainian troops were retreating from Sievierodonetsk after weeks
of bombardment and house-to-house fighting. He confirmed Saturday that the city
had fallen to Russian and separatist fighters, who he said were now trying to
blockade Lysychansk from the south. The city lies across the river just to the
west of Sievierodonetsk.
Capturing Lysychansk would give Russian forces control of
every major settlement in the province, a significant step toward Russia’s aim
of capturing the entire Donbas. The Russians and separatists control about half
of Donetsk, the second province in the Donbas.
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a spokesman for the
separatist forces, Andrei Marochko, as saying Russian troops and separatist
fighters had entered Lysychansk and that fighting was taking place in the heart
of the city. There was no immediate comment on the claim from the Ukrainian
side.
Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk have been the focal point of
a Russian offensive aimed at capturing all of the Donbas and destroying the
Ukrainian military defending it — the most capable and battle-hardened segment
of the country’s armed forces.
Russian bombardment has reduced most of Sievierodonetsk to
rubble and cut its population from 100,000 to 10,000. The last remaining
Ukrainian troops were holed up in underground shelters in the huge Azot
chemical plant, along with hundreds of civilians. A separatist representative,
Ivan Filiponenko, said earlier Saturday that its forces evacuated 800 civilians
from the plant during the night, Interfax reported.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleg Zhdanov said some of the
troops were heading for Lysychansk. But Russian moves to cut off Lysychansk
will give those retreating troops little respite.
Some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to the west, four Russian
cruise missiles fired from the Black Sea hit a “military object” in Yaroviv,
Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy said. He did not give further details
of the target, but Yaroviv has a sizable military base used for training
fighters, including foreigners who have volunteered to fight for Ukraine.
Russian missiles struck the Yaroviv base in March, killing
35 people. The Lviv region, although far from the front lines, has come under
fire at various points in the the war as Russia's military worked to destroy
fuel storage sites.
About 30 Russian missiles were fired on the Zhytomyr region
in central Ukraine on Saturday morning, killing one Ukrainian soldier, regional
governor Vitaliy Buchenko said. He said all of the strikes were aimed at
military targets.
In the northwest, two missiles hit a service station and
auto repair center in Sarny, killing three people and wounding four, the Rivne
regional governor, Vitaliy Koval, said. He posted a picture of the destruction.
Sarny is located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the border with
Belarus.
In southern Ukraine along the Black Sea coast, nine missiles
fired from Crimea hit the port city of Mykolaiv, the Ukrainian military said.
In the north, about 20 missiles were fired from Belarus into
the Chernihiv region, the Ukrainian military said.
Ukraine's military intelligence agency said the Russian
bombers' use of Belarusian airspace for the first time for Saturday's attack
was “directly connected to attempts by the Kremlin to drag Belarus into the
war.”
Belarus hosts Russian military units and was used as a
staging ground before Russia invaded Ukraine, but its own troops have not
crossed the border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly
video address that as a war that Moscow expected to last five days moved into
its fifth month, Russia “felt compelled to stage such a missile show."
He said the war was at a difficult stage, “when we know that
the enemy will not succeed, when we understand that we can defend our country,
but we don’t know how long it will take, how many more attacks, losses and
efforts there will be before we can see that victory is already on our
horizon.”
During his meeting in St. Petersburg with Lukashenko, Putin
told him the Iskander-M missile systems would be arriving in the coming months.
He noted that they can fire either ballistic or cruise missiles and carry
nuclear as well as conventional warheads. Russia has launched several Iskander
missiles into Ukraine during the war.
Following a botched attempt to capture Kyiv, Ukraine’s
capital, in the early stage of the invasion that started Feb. 24, Russian
forces have shifted their focus to the Donbas, where the Ukrainian forces have
fought Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking in Washington on
condition of anonymity, on Friday called the Ukrainians’ withdrawal from
Sievierodonetsk a “tactical retrograde” to consolidate forces into positions
where they can better defend themselves. The move will reinforce Ukraine’s
efforts to keep Russian forces pinned down in a small area, the official said.
After repeated Ukrainian requests to its Western allies for
heavier weaponry to counter Russia’s edge in firepower, four medium-range American
rocket launchers arrived this week, with four more on the way.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry released a video Saturday
showing the first use of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS,
in Ukraine. The video gave no location or indication of the targets. The
rockets can travel about 45 miles (70 kilometers).
The senior U.S. defense official said Friday that more
Ukrainian forces are training outside Ukraine to use the HIMARS and are
expected back in their country with the weapons by mid-July. Also to be sent
are 18 U.S. coastal and river patrol boats.
The official said there is no evidence Russia has
intercepted any of the steady flow of weapons into Ukraine from the U.S. and
other nations. Russia has repeatedly threatened to strike, or actually claimed
to have hit, such shipments.
– AP/UNB
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