Russian forces have launched new assaults on cities in eastern Ukraine, with the city of Sievierodonetsk increasingly in danger of being completely surrounded.
The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said delays in the arrival of Western weapons at the front had left Kyiv “catastrophically unarmed.”
Luhansk region governor Serhiy Haidai said the area was now without gas supplies and had limited water and electricity after the last gas station was run over.
Haidai added that Russian forces were trying to “completely destroy” the city of Sievierodonetsk in an attempt to conquer the Donbas region, near the Russian border.
“They are simply wiping Sievierodonetsk off the face of the earth,” Haidai told his Telegram channel.
“Right now, with the support of the artillery, the Russian occupiers are attacking Sievierodonetsk,” Haidai added.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the situation in the Donbas was “extremely difficult” with the Russian army in full force. Images of the last few days from the front lines, posted on social media, have shown a constant bombardment of artillery and rocket fire raining on key roads and positions in Ukraine.
Recent video footage released by AFP photographer Aris Messinis in the Donbas showed shells hitting near a road in the east of the country and the constant sound of incoming artillery fire.
Unable to seize Kyiv or Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, Russia is trying to seize the rest of the two Donbas-claimed Donetsk and Luhansk provinces and trap Ukrainian forces in a pocket. main eastern front.
In the easternmost part of the pocket of the Donbas, controlled by Ukraine, the city of Sievierodonetsk on the east bank of the Siverskyi River Donets and its twin Lysychansk, on the west bank, have become a key battleground as that Russian forces have advanced from three directions to encircle them. they.
The assessment of Russian operations by Western analysts suggests that instead of encircling Ukrainian forces in a large, global effort, Russia is trying to divide Ukraine-controlled territory into several small encirclements with the same effect.
The American think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said in its May 24 update that Russian troops “instead of trying to secure smaller encirclements and focus on Sievierodonetsk “He added that Ukrainian forces were probably also conducting a controlled retreat southwest of the city of Popasna to protect Ukraine’s supply lines from Russian offensives.
Russia appears to have deployed higher-quality troops from a so-called operational maneuver group to lead the operation around Sievierdonestsk, with some reports suggesting that Russian planes were making several hundred departures a day in support of the attack.
Russian forces also appear to be benefiting from better supply lines in the Luhansk region, and Ukrainian officials are calling for more Western heavy weapons, including multiple rocket launch systems, for their downed defenders.
In the town of Sloviansk, west of Donbas, many residents took advantage of what Ukraine said was a break in the Russian assault to leave. “My house was bombed, I have nothing,” said Vera Safronova, who was sitting in a train car among the evacuees.
Along with the eastern Donbas region, Moscow is also targeting southern Ukraine and has blocked ships that would normally export Ukrainian sunflower grain and oil across the Black Sea, raising prices globally and threatening. lives.
Russia, which has blamed Ukraine and the West for the food crisis, said it was willing to offer a humanitarian corridor for food-carrying ships to leave Ukraine, but said Western sanctions should be lifted in return.
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Three months after the invasion, Russia still has limited gains to prove its worst military losses in decades, while much of Ukraine has suffered devastation as Moscow intensified artillery attacks to make up for its slow progress.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said he was deliberately making slow progress in what he called his “special operation” to prevent civilian casualties, Zelenskiy said, calling it “absolutely unrealistic.”
“We will continue the special military operation until all the objectives have been achieved,” Shoigu told the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance of former Soviet states led by Russia. Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev also said the Moscow offensive would last as long as necessary.
“We are in no hurry to meet the deadlines,” he said.