The war in Ukraine enters its fourth month today, with Russian troops focusing their attack on the last resistance pocket in the region. Luganskin the Donbass (east).
Although they claim to have repulsed Russian attacks on the country’s two largest cities, the capital Kyiv in late March and early April and then in Kharkiv in May, Ukrainians have been admitting for a few days now that they are facing growing “difficulties” in Donbassformed by the regions – “oblast” – Lugansk and Donetsk.
“The next weeks of the war will be difficult,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged in his daily sermon last night.
“The Russian occupation forces are trying to show that they will not leave the occupied territories in the region. Kharkov (northeast), that they will not surrender its periphery Hersonissos (south), the occupied areas of its periphery Of Zaporizhia (southeast) and of Donbass (east). They come in part. “They are strengthening their positions elsewhere.”
The situation remains “extremely difficult” at Donbasswhere the Russians seek to “exterminate whoever lives”, complained President Zelensky.
Moscow is concentrating its firepower on the last enclave of the Ukrainians in Luganskencircling the cities Severodonetsk and Lisichansk. Ukrainian Defense Ministry speaks of fierce fighting near communities Popasna and Bahmutsomething that seems to confirm the circular motion.
Russia has stepped up its attacks in southern and eastern Ukraine, with the main aim of Severonetskthe largest city still under Ukrainian control in Luhansk Oblast, according to the BBC.
At the same time, Russian missiles caused severe damage to railway infrastructure in the region. Dnipropetrovsk on Monday night, according to the head of the regional military administration. Several cities in Donetsk were also bombed, a senior official said, killing one civilian and wounding four others.
Meanwhile, Russian nationalists are increasingly criticizing the Kremlin’s military failures in Ukraine and calling for greater mobilization, which Russia is “reluctant and unable to continue,” according to the Institute for the Study of War.
“Compulsory” evacuations
Her fall Bahmutin the periphery Donetskwould give the Russians control of a strategic crossroads, which is also currently an improvised command center for Ukrainian forces in the region.
Residents refuse to leave, despite danger: “People do not want to leave,” said the deputy mayor BahmutMaxim Sutkovi, in front of a half-empty bus that was supposed to transport civilians to safer areas.
Authorities are now reaching “the point where we will make mandatory evacuations,” the military chief told BahmutSerhiy Kalyan.
Those who remain say that rockets and bombs begin to fall in the early hours of the morning and continue until noon around Bahmut.
THE Severodonetsk bombed “24 hours a day” by the Russians, who “use the tactics of scorched earth, deliberately destroy the city” LuganskSerhiy Haidai.
Her luck Severodonetsk may be similar to hers Mariupolthe port of strategic importance that was almost completely destroyed after weeks of siege.
In part of his valley Donbass The two self-proclaimed pro-Russian democracies were created in 2014. To defend them from the “genocide” he claimed he was preparing to commit in Kyiv, Vladimir Putin ordered a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, just 24 hours after he formally recognized the two “democratic republics” as autonomous state entities. their territory to extend throughout Donbass.
Military assistance from 20 countries
The southern front seems stable, although the Ukrainians say they made a profit. The command of their forces in the south spoke today of “progress” in its area Mikolaif “in the direction of its periphery HersonissosThe new pro-Russian authorities have said they want to introduce the ruble.
While Moscow is stepping up its efforts to understand it all DonbassKyiv, which insists on asking for more weapons, has secured promises of support from Western states.
At a digital meeting of the Contact Group for the Defense of Ukraine, 44 countries discussed military aid in Kyiv yesterday. Twenty pledged to send more weapons, while others pledged to train the Ukrainian army, according to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
He declined to comment on the weapons to be sent by the United States, after the approval by the Congress of the giant aid package to Ukraine, worth a total of 40 billion dollars.
However, among the weapons that will be sent will be missiles against surface Harpoon ships, along with a self-propelled launcher, promised by Denmark. Kyiv and its Western allies believe that these missiles can be used to lift the blockade of the port of Odessa, a hub for grain exports from the country, which are critical not only for the Ukrainian economy but also for food supplies. several other countries. Theoretically, these missiles could even threaten Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said he hoped to “be able to present the results of the use” of the weapons he had promised would be delivered yesterday as “data on the battlefield could change”.
Eight million displaced
In three months, thousands of people, civilians and soldiers, have been killed, but there is no clear record. Only in Mariupolthe Ukrainian authorities speak of 20,000 dead.
At the military level, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry claims that the Russians have lost 29,200 men, 204 aircraft and 1,300 tanks since the start of the war on February 24. The Kremlin acknowledges that Russia has suffered “great losses” without elaborating. Western sources put the death toll at 12,000. A French military source told AFP that the number had risen to 15,000.
If any of these numbers are accurate, they mean that Russia’s losses exceed those suffered by the Soviet army in Afghanistan in nine years, according to the British Ministry of Defense.
As for Ukraine, it has not yet announced clear figures on the losses of its own army.
The war also upset the country’s demographic image. More than eight million Ukrainians have been internally displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). To these are added 6.5 million refugees in foreign countries, more than half (3.4 million) in Poland.
Ukraine says 1.4 million people have been deported to Russia
Russia has forcibly relocated 1.4 million Ukrainians to its territory, Kyiv’s human rights spokeswoman Lyudmyla Denisova was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
There is “convincing evidence” that Russia had prepared these moves in advance and that it expects to expel more than two million Ukrainians, she added.
Late last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said more than a million people had been “evacuated” from Ukraine to Russia.
Source: Capital

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