Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk have seen fierce fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces for weeks. Credit … Tyler Hicks / The New York Times
LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine – All the bridges connecting the Ukrainian twin cities of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk are destroyed and street fighting is raging, leaving thousands of civilians trapped largely in one of the deadliest battles of the war. Bye now.
Russia has targeted the area since it began its large-scale invasion in February, but as it has reduced its offensive in the resource-rich eastern Donbas region, Russian commanders have consistently redirected more forces into the small pocket. land in and around Sievierodonetsk.
It is estimated that there are still about 10,000 people in the city of Sievierodonetsk, and a few hundred are believed to be in bunkers under a chemical plant that is under almost constant bombardment. The Ukrainian government said this week that any large-scale evacuation of the city is now impossible. Russia has promised to create a humanitarian corridor, but previous claims have failed to materialize and Russian forces have directed their fire at places where civilians were gathering to flee.
Fierce fighting continued on Thursday in Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk. A Russian airstrike hit downtown Lysychansk on Thursday morning, killing at least one person, local authorities said.
For most of the day, Russian and Ukrainian artillery fired from the opposite banks of the Siversky Donets River, which divides the two cities. A group of Ukrainian soldiers, taking a break from fighting in the basement of a Soviet-style apartment, asked reporters at The New York Times when Western rocket artillery systems would arrive and said they needed many.
On the front line, as Russian artillery strikes the city of Lysychansk, “an hour seems like a whole day,” a soldier said.
In Sievierodonetsk, the ruined city people are now largely alone. Those who have released it recently describe creepy scenes.
Smoke was rising from Sievierodonetsk on Sunday. Credit … Tyler Hicks / The New York Times
Serhiy Haidai, head of the Luhansk military administration, said the bombing was now so intense that “people can no longer bear it in the shelters: their psychological state is at its limit.”
Russia does not control the city, he said, and house-to-house pitched battles are being fought. At the same time, Russian forces continue to ravage the villages around the city, Haidai said.
“The destruction of the residential sector is catastrophic,” he said. People in the city have reported running out of food and clean water, describing scenes similar to those that occurred in Mariupol and many other cities and towns along the Eastern Front over the past four months.
Another 60,000 civilians are still believed to be living in Ukraine-controlled Lysychansk. But the constant Russian bombing of the area as Russia tries to encircle Ukrainian forces has made any large-scale evacuation an extremely difficult proposition.
Much of the estimated 50,000 to 60,000 rounds of artillery fired by Russia each day are concentrated in the latter part of Ukrainian-controlled Luhansk province.
The type of convoy needed for a large-scale evacuation would likely require coordination between Russia and Ukraine overseen by international mediators. There have been no public suggestions that this plan is being discussed. In Lysychansk, volunteers, in a mix of vehicles, are evacuating dozens of civilians every day.
Ukraine’s top military commander, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said in a statement that Russia had focused its efforts on the battle. In addition to the non-stop artillery bombardment, he said, Moscow is directing airstrikes and using multiple rocket launch systems to clear everything in its path. Russian forces are trying to advance along nine separate fronts from the north, east and south.
Despite Russia’s superior arsenal, the Ukrainians have been able to prevent Moscow forces from completing the encirclement of the area. General Zaluzhnyi said they will continue to fight.
Sievierodonetsk, he said, is a key point in the defense system of the Luhansk region. “The city can be seen as nothing less than that,” he said.
– Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Marc Santora and Natalia Yermak