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- The retreat marks a small but symbolically important victory for the Russians in the battle for control of the Donbas.
- Heavy fighting in the city destroyed 80 percent of its buildings and all of its vital infrastructure, the head of the regional administration said.
- Russian forces have made advances near Lysychansk, another key city in the region, in recent days.
Ukraine ordered its troops to withdraw from their starting point in the city of Severodonetsk to avoid the siege, ending a battle that lasted almost two months and giving Russia a small, but symbolically important, victory in the great war for control of the Donbas area in eastern Ukraine.
Severodonetsk, a city of just over 100,000 inhabitants before the war, served as the administrative center of the Ukrainian-controlled parts of Luhansk, one of the two regions that make up Donbas. Most of the city was taken by Russian troops in recent weeks, with Ukrainian defenders mostly hiding in the extensive industrial plant of Azot.