Ukrainian troops in Sheverodonetsk, on the front line, can still pick up weapons and evacuate their wounded despite damage to supply corridors, a senior Ukrainian military official told Reuters today, according to Reuters.
Oleksiy Gromov, deputy chief of staff of the General Staff’s main operations department, said the situation in the city was difficult but stable.
At the same time, the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said that Ukrainian troops might have to withdraw from the city of Lisykhansk to avoid a siege, as Russian forces occupied two settlements in the south.
Lisichansk and Sheverodonetsk have become the focus of a Russian offensive in the eastern Donbass region and fighting there is nearing a “wild peak”, an adviser to the Ukrainian president said on Wednesday.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces today confirmed the loss of Rai-Oleksandrivka and Loskutivka, located about 5 km from Lysychansk, and said that Russian troops were trying to encircle the Ukrainian forces there.
“In order to avoid the siege, our administration could order the troops to retreat to new positions,” he told national television.
“All of Lisichansk is within range of their fire. Things are very dangerous in the city.”
He said Lisichansk could still be reached by road, allowing the evacuation of civilians to continue. The Russian news agency TASS had earlier reported that Russian-backed separatists had said the city was under siege and cut off from supplies.
The war has entered a fierce phase of fighting in recent weeks, with Russian forces concentrating their overwhelming artillery fire in this pocket of Donbass, which Moscow is claiming on behalf of the separatists.
The British Ministry of Defense said today that Russia’s recent progress is putting increasing pressure on Ukrainian forces resisting Lisichansk and Severodonetsk.
“However, its (Russia’s) efforts to achieve a deeper encirclement to occupy the western region (Donetsk region) remain stagnant,” the ministry said in a daily Twitter post.
Source: Capital
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