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Ukraine is LOSING: Defenders are forced to fall back to avoid capture as Russians advance in Donbas

Jimie 2022. 5. 28. 17:42

IS Ukraine LOSING the war in Donbas? Defenders are forced to fall back to avoid capture as Russians advance after blasting towns to wastelands in the east of country

  • Withdrawal from the Luhansk region likely, admits Ukraine in new war blow
  • Area is hugely significant and one of main aims of Putin and Russia's invasion
  • President Zelenskiy said Ukraine was protecting Luhansk as best it could
  • Putin had launched invasion under the aims of capturing Luhansk and Donetsk

By DAN SALES and CHRIS MATTHEWS FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 17:07 AEST, 28 May 2022 | UPDATED: 18:01 AEST, 28 May 2022

 

Ukraine has admitted it may have to retreat from its last post in the Luhansk region as Russian forces continue their relentless march.

Putin's forces - now into their fourth month of the invasion - have concentrated on the east of the country in recent weeks.

Ukrainian soldiers leaving Luhansk will be a blow to the country, due to its symbolic significance in the war.

 

Putin wants both Luhansk and Donetsk regions in full and their capture was one of his earliest objectives in the deranged despot's so-called 'special military operation'.

Luhansk's governor, Serhiy Gaidai, said Russian troops had entered Severodonetsk, the largest Donbas city still held by Ukraine, after trying to trap Ukrainian forces there for days, though adding that Russian forces would not be able to capture the Luhansk region 'as analysts have predicted'.

'We will have enough strength and resources to defend ourselves. However, it is possible that in order not to be surrounded we will have to retreat,' Gaidai said on Telegram.

Gaidai said 90 per cent of buildings in Severodonetsk were damaged with 14 high-rises destroyed in the latest shelling.

Russia's separatist proxies said they controlled Lyman, a railway hub west of Severodonetsk. Ukraine said Russia had captured most of Lyman but that its forces were blocking an advance to Sloviansk, to the southwest.

 

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Damaged buildings and tanks on the road in Lyman, which Russian forces have captured most of

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Towed Russian artillery and self-propelled artillery batteries deployed along tree lines north of Lyman

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Russian howitzers in firing positions north of Lyman on Friday. Lyman is a railway hub west of Severodonetsk

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A man walks outside a Gypsum Manufactory plant after shelling in the city of Bakhmut at the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas on Friday

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Smoke and dirt rise from the city of Severodonetsk, during shelling in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas on Thursday

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A building heavily damaged during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the town of Popasna in the Luhansk region yesterday

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Russia has stepped up its attacks in the Donbas region in the east of of Ukraine, an area that is more pro-separatist than the rest of the country

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine was protecting its land 'as much as our current defence resources allow'. Ukraine's military said it had repelled eight attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk on Friday, destroying tanks and armoured vehicles.

'If the occupiers think that Lyman and Severodonetsk will be theirs, they are wrong. Donbas will be Ukrainian,' Zelenskiy said in an address.

The General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces said on Saturday Ukrainian forces had repelled eight assaults in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the previous 24 hours. Russia's attacks included artillery assaults in the Severodonetsk area 'with no success', it said.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said while Russian forces had begun direct assaults on built-up areas of Severodonetsk, they would likely struggle to take ground in the city itself.

 

'Russian forces have performed poorly in operations in built-up urban terrain throughout the war,' they said.

Russian troops advanced after piercing Ukrainian lines last week in the city of Popasna, south of Severodonetsk. Russian ground forces have captured several villages northwest of Popasna, Britain's defence ministry said.

Resident Natalia Kovalenko had left the cellar where she was sheltering in the wreckage of her flat, its windows and balcony blasted away. She said a shell hit the courtyard, killing two people and wounding eight.

'We are tired of being so scared,' she said.

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A still image taken from a video released by Ukrainian military, which according to them shows Russian army position set up near private house being attacked, shows an explosion of a building, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Vojevodivka, Luhansk region.

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Smoke rises after an explosion of a Vojevodivka building in this still image taken from a video released by Ukrainian military on Thursday

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Apartment buildings damaged during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the town of Popasna in the Luhansk region

Russia's eastern gains follow the withdrawal of its forces from approaches to the capital, Kyiv, and a Ukrainian counter-offensive that pushed its forces back from Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv.

Russian forces shelled parts of Kharkiv on Thursday for the first time in days killing nine people, authorities said. The Kremlin denies targeting civilians in what it calls its 'special military operation'.

Ukraine's General Staff said on Saturday while there was no new attack on the city, there were multiple Russian strikes on nearby communities and infrastructure.

In the south, where Moscow has seized a swath of territory since the Feb. 24 invasion, including the port of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to impose permanent rule.

In the Kherson region in the south, Russian forces were fortifying defences and shelling Ukraine-controlled areas, the region's Ukrainian governor, Hennadiy Laguta, told media.

He said the humanitarian situation was critical in some areas and people were finding it very difficult to leave.

Police said 31 people had been evacuated on Friday from the Luhansk region, including 13 children.

On the diplomatic front, European Union officials said a deal might be reached by Sunday to ban deliveries of Russian oil by sea, accounting for about 75 per cent of the bloc's supply, but not by pipeline, a compromise to win over Hungary and clear the way for new sanctions.

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The Russian advance in the east has been backed by massive artillery bombardment across as many as 50 towns in Donetsk and Luhansk to force Ukrainian troops to retreat (destroyed residential building in Popasna, Luhansk, Ukraine, May 26)

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Having lost thousands of troops in scattered fighting along the eastern front in recent weeks, Russian forces yesterday launched a targeted assault from three sides to try to encircle Ukrainian forces in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk (Russian troops pictured May 26 in Luhansk)

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Service members of pro-Russian troops drive a tank along a street past a destroyed residential building during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the town of Popasna in the Luhansk Region, Ukraine May 26

 

Zelenskiy has accused the EU of dithering over a ban on Russian energy, saying the bloc was funding Russia's war and delay 'merely means more Ukrainians being killed'.

In a telephone call with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Putin stuck to his line that a global food crisis caused by the conflict can be resolved only if the West lifts sanctions.

Nehammer said Putin expressed readiness to discuss a prisoner swap with Ukraine but added: 'If he is really ready to negotiate is a complex question.'

Both Russia and Ukraine are major grain exporters, and Russia's blockade of ports has halted shipments, driving up global prices. Russia accuses Ukraine of mining the ports.

Russia justified its assault in part on ensuring Ukraine does not join the U.S.-led NATO military alliance. But the war has pushed Sweden and Finland, both neutral throughout the Cold War, to apply to join NATO in one of the most significant changes in European security in decades

 

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Ukraine is LOSING: Defenders are forced to fall back to avoid capture as Russians advance in Donbas