The military situation of Ukrainian defenders in the eastern Donbas is “extremely difficult,” the governor of the Luhansk region said, as Russian attacks intensified in an effort to capture Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
Serhiy Haidai said overnight that Russia had said 568 civilians were hiding at the Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk, the last place Ukrainian forces had in the city on the east bank of the Siverskyi Donets River.
“It’s a big disaster,” he told the Associated Press. “They are firing at our positions from shells, multiple rocket launchers, large-caliber artillery and missile attacks.”
Neighbor Lysychansk on the west bank was being bombed “en masse,” Haidai added, while analysts warned of a near Russian advance that meant invading forces were four miles (7 km) south. east of the city.
According to Special Forces Colonel Oleksandr Kutsepalenko, a city police station received a “direct impact” and injured 20 officers, and the residential neighborhood around it was marked with craters for bombing and airstrikes.
The Ukrainian president’s office said at least six civilians had been killed in the past 24 hours and 16 more had been injured. He said Russian forces had bombed the northern region of Chernivtsi and intensified bombing of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. There were also explosions on Tuesday morning in the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Konrad Muzyka, a military analyst, said the situation in Lysychansk seemed “increasingly bleak for Ukrainians” after the Russians broke down lines of defense near the villages of Toshkivka and Ustynivka in the south.
Haidai acknowledged that “the situation along the entire Luhansk front is extremely difficult” in a previous post on his Telegram channel, saying Russia was launching a “large-scale offensive” using reserve forces.
Rodion Miroshnik, Russia’s ambassador to the self-proclaimed republic in Luhansk, said his forces “moved from the south to Lysychansk” and predicted an imminent victory.
The capture of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk would give Russia almost the entire Lugansk oblast, one of the two Donbas regions. Moscow’s goal may be to show the West that it can achieve a military victory ahead of the EU, G7 and NATO summits, which begin this Thursday.
Earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskiy had predicted that Russia would intensify attacks ahead of the EU summit. He added: “Russia is very nervous about our activity. We are defending Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk. This whole region is the hardest, there are the toughest battles. “
Muzyka said Ukraine should have withdrawn from Sievierodonetsk some time ago and should have focused on defending Lysychansk, which is at a higher elevation than its close neighbor and is, in theory, more easy to protect. But the flanking advance across the river from the southeast is now threatening.
Drone footage shows artillery attacks on a Ukrainian city since Russia was captured: video
The two sides have clashed in an increasingly intense fight over Sievierodonetsk over the past six weeks, with thousands killed. Ukraine has probably suffered the most from a prolonged artillery bombardment by the Russians that has destroyed dozens of buildings.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces demanded the first successful use of Western-issued Harpoon anti-missile missiles to counter Russian forces, the UK Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday. “The target of the attack was almost certainly the Russian naval tug Spasatel Vasily Bekh, who was delivering weapons and personnel to Snake Island northwest of the Black Sea,” he said in his daily update.
The Kyiv Defense Ministry also said it had “finally” deployed an advanced German artillery system after the seven shells promised by Berlin arrived. “The Panzerhaubitze 2000 is finally part of the 155 mm howitzer arsenal of Ukrainian artillery,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov wrote on social media, thanking his German counterpart , Christine Lambrecht.
Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia would further strengthen its armed forces as a result of “potential military threats” in a speech to a group of graduates of Russian military academies.
“We will continue to develop and strengthen our armed forces, taking into account possible military threats and risks,” he said. Putin added that the Russian military is supplying the S-500 surface-to-air missile system and said that Russia will deploy the newly tested Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of more than 10 nuclear warheads, this year.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Russian television was broadcasting throughout the occupied southern Kherson region, captured by the invaders in the first week of the war.
It is the latest step in a forced Russification of the occupied areas of Ukraine, where Russia has tried to issue passports, introduce the ruble, ask teachers to change curricula and other measures.
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Two American volunteer soldiers captured in fighting in northern Kharkiv a fortnight ago have been filmed on Russian television at a detention center in the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic, some distance from where they were taken.
Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, both of Alabama, had been fighting as part of the Ukrainian army. The U.S. State Department said it knew about the film and was “following closely.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with NBC News that the men “should be held accountable for the crimes they have committed” and were not covered by the Geneva conventions that protect prisoners of war.
Three other foreign fighters, British Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun, were sentenced to death by a Donetsk court earlier this month, although they have time to appeal. Russia does not apply the death penalty but the separatist republic, not recognized by the West.