- The separatists say Lysychansk “under control”, but not released
- The Ukrainians say great battles, but Lysychansk not surrounded
- The blasts affected the Russian governor of Belgorod, three wounded
Kyiv / KONSTYANTYNIVKA, Ukraine, July 3 (Reuters) – Fighting has intensified over Lysychansk, Ukraine’s last major stronghold in the strategic eastern Luhansk province, as an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy admitted that the city could fall.
The blasts also shook the Russian city of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine, the regional governor said early Sunday.
The blasts set fire to a residential building and three injured were taken to a hospital, Vyacheslav Gladkov posted on the Telegram messaging app.
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Russia is trying to expel Ukrainian forces from Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting in Kyiv since Russia’s first military intervention in Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian troops on the eastern front describe intense artillery attacks on residential areas, while Kyiv says Moscow has intensified missile attacks on cities far from major eastern battlefields, accusing Russia of deliberately hitting civilian sites. .
Thousands of civilians have been killed and cities razed since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what Ukraine, its Western allies, say is a war of unprovoked aggression. Russia denies targeting civilians in what President Vladimir Putin calls a “special military operation” to demilitarize and “de-Nazize” its neighbor.
Russian forces seized the sister city of Lysychansk, Sievierodonetsk, on the opposite side of the Siverskiy Donets River, last month after some of the toughest fighting in the war.
Rodion Miroshnik, Russia’s ambassador to the self-proclaimed Lugansk pro-Moscow People’s Republic, told Russian television: “Lysichansk has been controlled,” but added, “Unfortunately, he is not yet released.”
Russian media showed a video of the Luhansk militia marching through the streets of Lysychansk waving flags and cheering, but Ukrainian National Guard spokesman Ruslan Muzychuk told Ukrainian television that the city remained in the hands of Ukraine.
“Now there are fierce battles near Lysychansk, but fortunately the city is not surrounded and is under the control of the Ukrainian army,” Muzychuk said.
Reuters was unable to independently verify battlefield reports.
Zelenskiy’s adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, said Russian forces had finally crossed the Siverskiy Donets River and were approaching the city from the north.
“That’s really a threat. We’ll see. I don’t rule out any of a series of results here. Things will be much clearer in a day or two,” he said.
Arrestovich said, however, that taking Lysychansk would strategically complicate matters for the Russians, as they would have to focus on six major cities in the industrialized region of eastern Donbas, extending their forces more finely.
He added: “The more Western weapons reach the front, the more the landscape changes in favor of Ukraine.” Ukraine has repeatedly called for more weapons in the West, saying its forces are far outnumbered.
“VERY DIFFICULT WAY”
Far from fighting in the east, Russia said it had hit army command posts in Mykolaiv, near the vital port of Odessa on the Black Sea, where the mayor on Saturday had reported powerful explosions.
Ukrainian authorities said Friday that another missile crashed into an apartment block near Odessa and killed at least 21 people. A shopping center was hit Monday in the central city of Kremenchuk and killed at least 19 people.
Zelenskiy denounced Friday’s attacks as “conscious and deliberate Russian terrorists and not any kind of mistake or accidental missile attack.”
In his televised speech on Saturday, Zelenskiy said it would be a “very difficult path” to victory, but the Ukrainians must maintain their determination and inflict losses on the “aggressor … so that all Russians remember that Ukraine cannot be broken. “
Troops on a ceasefire cease in Konstyantynivka, a commercial town about 115 km (70 miles) west of Lysychansk, said they had managed to keep the supply road open in the stormed city for the time being, despite the bombing. rus.
“We still use the road because we have to, but it’s within reach of Russian artillery,” one soldier said as comrades relaxed nearby, eating sandwiches or eating ice cream.
“The Russian tactic right now is to bomb any building where we could be located. When they have destroyed it, they move on to the next one,” he said.
Reuters reporters saw an unexploded missile attached to the ground in a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of the city of Kramatorsk, Donbas, on Saturday evening.
The missile fell in a wooded area between blocks of residential towers. The outgoing artillery fire and several large explosions were heard in the center of Kramatorsk in the early evening.
Despite being mistreated in the east, Ukrainian forces have made some advances elsewhere, such as forcing Russia to withdraw from Snake Island, an outcrop of the Black Sea southeast of Odessa that Moscow captured at the start of the war.
Russia had used Snake Island to impose a blockade on Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters and a major producer of seeds for vegetable oils. The outages have helped fuel rising world prices for cereals and food.
Russia, also a major grain producer, blames the crisis on Western sanctions that hurt its exports.
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Reuters office reports; Written by David Brunnstrom and Lincoln Feast; Edited by William Mallard
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