The last major city held by Ukraine in the disputed eastern province of Lugansk has fallen, military officials on both sides said on Sunday, handing Moscow a decisive victory in its campaign to seize Donbass, the region rich in border minerals from Russia that has long been in the sights of President Vladimir V. Putin.
The industrial city of Lysychansk, on a rise overlooking the Siversky Donets River, had held out for a week after Russia took control of Sievierodonetsk, its twin city across the river. But as Russia flooded Lysychansk with artillery fire and strangled its supply lines, relying on months of bombardment and weeks of fierce street fighting that reduced the two cities to gray hues, the Ukrainian defenders were forced to retreat.
It left Russian soldiers posing for photos outside Lysychansk’s town hall, chanting “Lysychansk is ours” and waving the flag of the Donetsk People’s Republic – the pro-Moscow breakaway state that Mr Putin claimed to protect when his forces invaded Ukraine, a video posted to Twitter on Sunday showed.
Western military analysts had expressed little doubt that Moscow would ultimately prevail in the Twin Cities, but with their undeniable loss pressure has redoubled on the United States and its allies to secure the more powerful weapons it has promised. to Ukraine at the front. For Western nations, however, the next phase of the war will be a test not only of military logistics but also of solidarity. As the conflict drags on, their own citizens feel the economic pain, and unity among allies can be difficult to maintain.
Russia now faces new challenges of its own. It controls more than a fifth of Ukraine – most of the towns in name only, skeletal remains emptied of their inhabitants after months of bombardment – but it will have to replenish forces and depleted ammunition as he leads what promises to be a fierce and endless fight. ground war.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied that Lysychansk was entirely in Russian hands. At a press conference with the visiting Australian Prime Minister, Zelensky said fighting was taking place on the outskirts of the city.
But videos posted on social media appeared to show Russian troops in the city center, and residents who have fled the area in recent days said the bulk of Ukrainian forces in Lysychansk left on Friday.
A few hours after the Russian army declared victory in the city, the Ukrainian army admitted that it had withdrawn its forces there. “The continued defense of the city would lead to fatal consequences,” he said in a statement on Facebook. “In order to preserve the lives of the Ukrainian defenders, it was decided to withdraw.”
With Lugansk province now in hand, Russian forces can aim squarely southwest at the remaining Ukrainian-held parts of neighboring Donetsk province, the other territory that makes up Donbass.
Better understand the Russian-Ukrainian war
Control of Donbass, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, has become Moscow’s main target since it failed to take the capital, Kyiv, this spring. The Donbass would be a prize offering Russia not only mineral resources but also a land corridor to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula it forcibly annexed in 2014.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu said the Russian military, along with units of the Luhansk People’s Republic, a second separatist pro-Moscow government, had established “full control over the city of Lysychansk and a number of nearby settlements,” according to a Russian Defense Ministry statement.
On Saturday, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, released an assessment that bolstered Russia’s claims. “Ukrainian forces probably carried out a deliberate withdrawal from Lysychansk, resulting in the capture of the city by the Russians,” the institute said. Videos showing Russian forces strolling casually suggest there are few or no Ukrainian troops left, he said.
After eight years of war between Moscow-backed separatists and Ukraine in the east of the country, Russia already controls between half and two-thirds of Donetsk province. Russia is now expected to use Lysychansk to push into Donetsk with offenses against the towns of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Bakhmut southwest of Lysychansk, ensuring the next chapter of the war will be as bloody as the last. .
Already, Ukrainian defensive lines were moving west towards Bakhmut, a key supply hub where Russia has exerted greater pressure with artillery and cruise missile fire in recent days. Further west, in Sloviansk, the mayor, Vadym Lyakh, on Sunday reported the most violent Russian bombardment to date on the city. Six people were killed and 15 injured, he wrote on Facebook, and at least 15 buildings were set on fire.
Lysychansk resident Ivan Shybkov, who fled to western Ukraine last month after helping to evacuate civilians, described what was happening as “a knife to the heart” – particularly footage of some people in Lysychansk greeting the invaders “with smiles on their faces” after long months without basic services like water, electricity, cell phone service and internet.
“Our emotions are not a switch that can be turned off,” Mr. Shybkov said. “Therefore, of course, it hurts us a lot.”
In the Battle of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, Moscow pursued a more successful strategy than during the initial phase of the invasion, when analysts say it spread its forces too thin while trying to capture Kyiv and the second-largest city. from Ukraine, Kharkiv.
Focusing on Donbass after withdrawing from Kyiv in early April, Russia concentrated its firepower – including long-range artillery that outclassed Ukraine’s – against specific targets. He pounded resisting cities from the ground and air with artillery and bombs, then sent troops and tanks to make small advances in close combat with Ukrainian forces.
The dams have cost Ukraine dearly.
At one point during the Donbass offensive, Ukrainian officials said up to 200 soldiers a day were dying in fields and villages in eastern Ukraine. And Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk are now “ghost towns”, Mr Zelensky said, with about 90% of Sievierodonetsk’s buildings in ruins and its population reduced to 7,000-8,000 civilians from 160,000 before the war.
But military analysts say Russia also suffered heavy casualties as Ukraine’s military, outgunned, held out in the Twin Cities, forcing Russia to dedicate more troops and weapons to the region and spend artillery shells at an extraordinarily rapid rate. Ukrainian forces have also diverted Russian resources by making small tactical gains last month around the cities of Kharkiv in the east and Kherson in the south, although Russia still maintains a significant presence in both areas.
All of this has undermined Russia’s strength in other places and may have given Ukraine time to start deploying more powerful and longer-range weapons supplied by the West, some analysts say.
Although US-led Western countries sent billions of dollars worth of advanced weapons to help Ukraine, the country’s leaders pleaded for more and faster. Given the time needed to train Ukrainian troops in their use, it is unclear whether more weapons will arrive in time to make any appreciable difference in protecting Donetsk from advancing Russia.
For now, Ukrainians are largely reduced to hoping that Russia’s heavy losses in the Donbass will prove unsustainable, as some Western officials and analysts have predicted.
Ukrainian military officials believe the next offensive will come from the direction of Popasna, east towards Bakhmut, while Russia’s northern and western lines will simply hold Ukrainian forces in place.
Sunday also brought another reminder of the potential costs for Russia, which suffered one of its worst civilian casualties of the war when explosions hit the center of a Russian town just north of Ukraine, killing four people, including three Ukrainians, officials said.
The Russian Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of being responsible for the explosions in the city of Belgorod on Sunday morning. While Ukraine has occasionally hit oil and military targets in Russia’s border region, this is the first time that Russia has accused Ukraine of targeting a major city center on the Russian side of the border during of a deadly attack.
There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian military.
In the Ukrainian struggle for national survival, the fall of Lysychansk was another blow.
Dima Boyko, 16, who fled Lysychansk for Kyiv, said he last heard from his mother and grandmother, who stayed in the city two months ago due to lack of mobile phone service. He said he had seen videos of his own neighborhood being taken over by Russian occupiers.
“The flags have already been hung, and near my house too – there is a Soviet monument, a tank,” he said. “From the video and the photo in Telegram, you can already tell that they have completely occupied the city.”
The report was provided by Natalia Yermak, Anton Troyanovsky, Austin Ramzy and Alex Traub.
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