Fierce fighting continues for Sievjerodonetsk in eastern Ukraine. Russia is strengthening its troops around the industrial city, the Ukrainian General Staff announced on Saturday. Artillery was used in the attacks on the strategically important city. However, the attempt by the Russian soldiers to advance to nearby Bakhmut and seal off Sievjerodonetsk failed. The Russian units then withdrew.
On Friday evening, the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, declared that parts of Sievjerodonetsk had been recaptured. About a fifth of the city’s territory lost to the Russian army is back under Ukrainian control. The information cannot be independently verified.
According to the governor, Russian soldiers blew up bridges in Sieverodonetsk. This is to prevent military equipment and aid for civilians from being brought into the city, Governor Gaidai said on television. Ukrainian units continued to hold their positions in the city and pushed back Russian soldiers in several places, Gaidai says. The industrial city of Sievjerodonetsk is located on the Siverskji Donets, on the other side of the river is its twin city Lysychansk.
In view of the dramatic situation in Sieverodonetsk, the Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, who lives in Vienna, warned against repeating a scenario like that in Mariupol. Firtash’s holding, GroupDF, owns the Svievyerodonetsk chemical plant Azot, whose bunkers are said to house 800 civilians, including 200 factory workers. Russia must unconditionally stop the ongoing attack, the Ukrainian demanded on Saturday, according to a broadcast.
Despite the intensified attack by Russian troops, 200 employees remained in the nitrogen factory in order to secure and professionally protect the remains of “highly explosive chemicals” stored there in the best possible way, the broadcast said. However, a large part of the nitrogen stored in the plant was evacuated from the conflict area in good time.
According to British military intelligence, the Russian military is maintaining high levels of artillery and airstrikes in eastern Ukraine. “The increased use of unguided munitions has resulted in the widespread destruction of built-up areas in Donbass and has almost certainly caused significant collateral damage and civilian casualties,” the defense ministry said on Twitter, referring to the regular intelligence report. Russia has increased its tactical airstrikes to support the slow advance. Combat aircraft and artillery would be used.
The Russian military also continued its attacks in southern Ukraine. A rocket hit an agricultural camp in the Odessa region on Saturday morning, a spokesman for the regional government wrote on Twitter. Two people were injured.
In addition, two people were killed in an attack on the Kharkiv region in the northeast on Friday. Two others were injured when a civilian target was fired upon by the Russian side, the Ukrainian news agency Interfax reported, citing rescue workers.
The Russian army controls about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory. About half of them – like the annexed peninsula of Crimea – came under the control of Russia or the separatists in Donbass in the east that it supports as early as 2014. The Russian soldiers have occupied the rest of the territory since the beginning of their invasion on February 24th.
For some time now, Russia has been concentrating its offensive on the east of the neighboring country. His troops advance slowly but steadily. However, they have so far failed to fully capture the two regions of Luhansk and Donetsk that make up the Donbass. If the Russian military captured Sieverodonetsk and its twin city Lysychansk across the Seversky Donets River, it would have complete control of the Luhansk region. The Russian President Vladimir Putin would have achieved an important goal.
Russian troops have already taken territory in southern Ukraine. They control the virtually destroyed port city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea by the Kerch Strait, and want to connect Crimea to the Donbass via a land bridge. Crimea lies between the northern Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
The Ukrainian presidential administration predicts that the Russian war of aggression could last up to six months. “It can take another two to six months,” said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak in an interview with the opposition Russian online portal “Medusa” on Friday evening. In the end it depends on how the mood in the societies of Europe, Ukraine and Russia changes.
There will only be negotiations when the situation on the battlefield changes and Russia no longer feels that it can dictate the terms, Podoljak said. He once again warned against territorial concessions to Russia. That won’t end the war.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for an immediate end to the violence after 100 days of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In a statement on Friday (local time), he also emphasized that a solution to the conflict would require negotiations and dialogue. The United Nations would support any such effort. Guterres also called for unhindered access for humanitarian workers to all those in need.
Russia describes its actions in Ukraine as a special military operation to protect the Russian-speaking population there. Ukraine and Western countries, on the other hand, speak of an unprovoked war of aggression.
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