প্রকাশ: 06/07/2022
Russian troops are engaged in heavy fighting supported by
widespread artillery fire as they launch a major offensive for Ukraine's
Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said, a day after Moscow declared victory
in the neighbouring province of Luhansk.
Donetsk and Luhansk comprise the Donbas, the industrialised
eastern part of Ukraine that has seen the biggest battle in Europe for
generations. Russia says it wants to wrest control of the entire Donbas from
Ukraine on behalf of Moscow-backed separatists in two self-proclaimed people's
republics.
After Russian forces on Sunday took control of Lysychansk,
the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, Ukrainian officials said
they now expect Moscow to focus its efforts especially on the cities of
Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in Donetsk.
There was heavy fighting at the edge of the Luhansk region,
its governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian television, saying Russian regular
army and reserve forces had been sent there in an apparent effort to cross the
Siverskiy Donets River.
They are sustaining quite heavy losses, Gaidai said.
Some battalions have been moved there to make up the numbers
they need...They are not taking all their wounded with them. The hospitals are
full to bursting as are the morgues.
There is still a great deal of shelling in both Luhansk and
Donetsk regions. They are shelling everything in their path.
Reuters could not independently verify his comments.
On Tuesday, Russian forces struck a market and a residential
area in Sloviansk, killing at least two people and injuring seven, local
officials said.
A Reuters reporter at the scene saw yellow smoke billowing
from an auto supplies shop, and flames engulfing rows of market stalls as
firefighters tried to extinguish the blaze.
Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said Sloviansk and
nearby Kramatorsk had suffered heavy shelling overnight. There is no safe place
without shelling in the Donetsk region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of
Ukraine on February 24, calling it a special military operation to
de-militarise the country, root out nationalists and protect Russian speakers.
Kyiv and the West say Russia is waging an unprovoked,
imperial-style land grab in its fellow ex-Soviet republic, and accuse Moscow of
war crimes.
A ruined city
Lysychansk, once a city of a 100,000 people, lies in ruins.
Buildings are scorched and holed by shells, cars up-ended and streets strewn
with rubble, testament to the ferocity of the battle it endured.
Tatiana Glushenko, a 45-year-old Lysychansk resident, told
Reuters there were people still sheltering in basements and bomb shelters, including
children and elderly.
Glushenko said she didn't think she would be safe in other
parts of Ukraine, so remained in Lysychansk with her family.
“All of Ukraine is being shelled; western Ukraine, central
Ukraine, Dnipro, Kyiv, everywhere. So we decided not to risk our lives and stay
here, at home at least,” she added.
Glushenko now hopes peace will return to her ruined city,
but for elderly residents Sergei and Evgenia the prospect of rebuilding from
the ruins is daunting.
“We have to get out of here somehow,” said Sergei, sitting
in a dark shelter with a lone flash light.
“The roof is broken. You have to fix it, but how and how do
you pay for it...Winter is coming soon too,” said Evgenia.
Luhansk governor Gaidai said Russian forces were pillaging
Lysychansk and its twin city Sievierodonetsk.
They are hunting down pro-Ukraine residents. They are making
deals with collaborators, they are identifying apartments were servicemen
lived, breaking in and taking clothing, he said.
Everything is being destroyed. Entire book collections in
Ukrainian. This is deja vu - 1939 with Nazi Germany.
Reuters could not immediately verify this report.
Russia says it does not target civilians.
'Long War' Ahead
Moscow ramped up its war rhetoric with Duma speaker
Vyacheslav Volodin saying Ukraine had become a terrorist state.
The remarks by the chairman of the lower house of parliament
suggested Russia may expand its stated war aims beyond the Donbas, having
abandoned offensives on the capital Kyiv and second largest city Kharkiv in the
face of fierce resistance early in the conflict.
In another sign Russia is bracing for a long war, the Duma
passed two bills in their first reading that would allow the government to
oblige firms to supply the military and make staff work overtime to support the
invasion.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told President
Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a phone call he believed Ukraine's military could
retake territory recently captured by Russia.
Johnson updated Zelenskiy on the latest deliveries of
British military equipment, including 10 self-propelled artillery systems and
loitering munitions, which would be arriving in the coming days and weeks, a
spokesperson said.
Russia's invasion has killed thousands, displaced millions
and flattened cities, particularly in Russian-speaking areas in the east and
southeast of Ukraine. It has also raised global energy and food prices and
raised fears of famine in poorer countries as Ukraine and Russia are both major
grain producers.
Ukraine has asked Turkey to help probe three Russian-flagged
ships as part of Kyiv’s efforts to investigate what it says is the theft of
grain from Russian-occupied territory, according to official documents. Russia
denies stealing Ukrainian grain.
- Reuters
প্রধান সম্পাদকঃ সৈয়দ বোরহান কবীর
ক্রিয়েটিভ মিডিয়া লিমিটেডের অঙ্গ প্রতিষ্ঠান
বার্তা এবং বাণিজ্যিক কার্যালয়ঃ ২/৩ , ব্লক - ডি , লালমাটিয়া , ঢাকা -১২০৭
নিবন্ধিত ঠিকানাঃ বাড়ি# ৪৩ (লেভেল-৫) , রোড#১৬ নতুন (পুরাতন ২৭) , ধানমন্ডি , ঢাকা- ১২০৯
ফোনঃ +৮৮-০২৯১২৩৬৭৭