Following Russia’s assertion that it now fully controls the Luhansk region as a result of the city’s surrender, Ukraine’s president pledges to recover Lysychansk.
The last Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Luhansk region, the bombed-out city of Lysychansk, has been evacuated, according to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
He did, though, promise to use long-range Western weapons to retake the lost area late on Sunday.
Less than a week after seizing the nearby city of Severdonetsk, Russia claimed that the fall of Lysychansk had given it complete authority over Luhansk, achieving a major Kremlin war objective. The battlefront’s attention is now on the neighbouring province of Donetsk, which together with Luhansk makes up the so-called Donbas region.
Zelenskyy added in his nightly video message, “There can be only one thing if the commanders of our army withdraw men from particular areas at the front where the enemy has the greatest advantage in firepower, and this also applies to Lysychansk.
That we will return because of our strategies and the increased availability of sophisticated weapons.
This included long-range weapons like the HIMARS rocket launchers provided by the United States, he said
“It is equally critical that we safeguard the lives of our troops and citizens. People must be safeguarded above all else, he continued, and we will rebuild the walls and retake the territory.
Russia has focused its military offensive on the industrial Donbas heartland after abandoning an assault on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, where Moscow-backed separatist proxies have been fighting the Ukrainian army since 2014.
Russia claims to be occupying the Luhansk region to hand it over to the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, which it supports and whose independence it recognised prior to invading Ukraine on February 24.
According to the Russian defence ministry, Sergei Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin that the city of Luhansk had been “liberated.” Earlier on Sunday, Russia claimed that its forces had taken settlements near Lysychansk and had encircled the city.
According to Ukraine’s military command, its men were compelled to leave the city.
“The prolongation of the city’s defence would have devastating repercussions. A decision was reached to withdraw in order to protect the lives of Ukrainian defenders, it claimed in a statement on social media. Residents in residential areas have reported strong artillery barrages, according to Ukrainian officials who claim that allusions to “liberating” Ukrainian land are Russian propaganda.
‘Maximum damage’
Although Russia attempted to portray their advance in Luhansk as a pivotal milestone in the conflict, Neil Melvin of the London-based think tank RUSI noted that it came at a tremendous cost to the Russian military.
“Ukraine never claimed to be able to defend all of this. They have been attempting to delay the Russian attack and inflict the most amount of harm while preparing a counteroffensive, he told the Reuters news agency.
At least six people were murdered when the city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk area was attacked by heavy fire from many rocket launchers on Sunday, according to local sources. Sloviansk is located west of Lysychansk.
At least 20 more people were hurt in Sloviansk, according to Zelenskyy, who also claimed that Russia had “brutally” attacked Kharkiv and Kramatorsk with rocket attacks.
Additionally, the second-largest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv, was hit, according to the Russian defence ministry.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spent Sunday in a village close to the Ukrainian capital that had sustained significant damage early in the conflict, far from the fighting in the east. The destruction in Irpin was described as “devastating” by Albanese.
One of the four Russian military bases in the city, according to Melitopol’s exiled mayor, was destroyed by Ukrainian rockets on Sunday.
Attacks were also reported inside Russia, according to the Belgorod region’s governor, who said that on Sunday, four persons were killed by the remnants of a Ukrainian missile that was intercepted.
A resident in Belgorod told the news agency Reuters, “The sound was so strong that I leapt up, I woke up, was quite afraid, and started screaming.” The resident added that the explosions happened at around 3am (00:00 GMT).
Moscow has charged Kiev with a slew of assaults on Belgorod and other Ukraine-bordering regions. Kiev has never accepted blame for any of these occurrences.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, two Ukrainian drones were shot down in the Russian city of Kursk.
According to Roman Starovoit, the governor of the Kursk area, mortar fire was directed at Tetkino, a town near the Ukrainian border.
