POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, sooner or later after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their final remaining bulwark of resistance in the province.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin in a televised assembly Monday that Russian forces had taken management of Luhansk, which along with the neighboring Donetsk province makes up Ukraine’s industrial heartland of Donbas.
Shoigu instructed Putin that “the operation” was accomplished on Sunday after Russian troops overran the town of Lysychansk, the final stronghold of Ukrainian forces in Luhansk.
Putin, in flip, mentioned that the navy items “that took part in active hostilities and achieved success, victory” in Luhansk, “should rest, increase their combat capabilities.”
Putin’s declaration got here as Russian forces tried to press their offensive deeper into eastern Ukraine after the Ukrainian navy confirmed that its forces had withdrawn from Lysychansk on Sunday. Luhansk governor Serhii Haidai mentioned on Monday that Ukrainian forces had retreated from the town to keep away from being surrounded.
“There was a risk of Lysychansk encirclement,” Haidai instructed the Associated Press, including that Ukrainian troops might have held on for just a few extra weeks however would have probably paid too excessive a worth.
“We managed to do centralized withdrawal and evacuate all injured,” Haidai mentioned. “We took back all the equipment, so from this point withdrawal was organized well.”
The Ukrainian General Staff mentioned Russian forces have been now focusing their efforts on pushing towards the road of Siversk, Fedorivka and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, about half of which is managed by Russia. The Russian military has additionally intensified its shelling of the important thing Ukrainian strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, deeper in Donetsk.
On Sunday, six folks, together with a 9-year-old woman, have been killed in the Russian shelling of Sloviansk and one other 19 folks have been wounded, based on native authorities. Kramatorsk additionally got here underneath fireplace on Sunday.
An intelligence briefing Monday from the British Defense Ministry supported the Ukrainian navy’s evaluation, noting that Russian forces will “now almost certainly” swap to capturing Donetsk. The briefing mentioned the battle in Donbas has been “grinding and attritional,” and is unlikely to vary in the approaching weeks.
While the Russian military has a large benefit in firepower, navy analysts say that it doesn’t have any important superiority in the quantity of troops. That means Moscow lacks assets for fast land beneficial properties and might solely advance slowly, counting on heavy artillery and rocket barrages to melt Ukrainian defenses.
Putin has made capturing your complete Donbas a key purpose in his conflict in Ukraine, now in its fifth month. Moscow-backed separatists in Donbas have battled Ukrainian forces since 2014 once they declared independence from Kyiv after the Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. Russia formally acknowledged the self-proclaimed republics days earlier than its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
Since failing to take Kyiv and different areas in Ukraine’s northeast early in the conflict, Russia has centered on Donbas, unleashing fierce shelling and engaging in house-to-house combat that devastated cities in the region.
Russia’s invasion has additionally devastated Ukraine’s agricultural sector, disrupting provide chains of seed and fertilizer wanted by Ukrainian farmers and blocking the export of grain, a key supply of income for the nation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nightly video handle, known as for speedy financial assist to assist the nation rebuild at the same time as preventing continues.
“The restoration of Ukraine is not only about what needs to be done later after our victory, but also about what needs to be done right now. And we must do this together with our partners, with the entire democratic world,” he mentioned.
“A significant part of the economy has been destroyed by hostilities and Russian strikes. Thousands of enterprises do not work. And this means a high need for jobs, to provide social benefits, despite the decrease in tax revenues,” Zelenskyy mentioned.
In its Monday intelligence report, Britain’s protection ministry pointed to the Russian blockade of the important thing Ukrainian port of Odesa, which has severely restricted grain exports. They predicted that Ukraine’s agricultural exports would attain solely 35% of the 2021 whole this 12 months consequently.
As Moscow pushed its offensive throughout Ukraine’s east, areas in western Russia got here underneath assault Sunday in a revival of sporadic obvious Ukrainian strikes throughout the border. The governor of the Belgorod region in Western Russia mentioned fragments of an intercepted Ukrainian missile killed 4 folks Sunday. In the Russian metropolis of Kursk, two Ukrainian drones have been shot down, based on the Russian Defense Ministry.
In different developments:
— Ukrainian troopers coming back from the entrance traces in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region — the place Russia is waging a fierce offensive — describe life during what has turned into a grueling war of attrition as apocalyptic.
— Two Russian airplanes departed Bulgaria on Sunday with scores of Russian diplomatic employees and their households amid a mass expulsion that has despatched tensions hovering between the traditionally shut nations, a Russian diplomat mentioned.
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Associated Press journalists Inna Varenytsia, Maria Grazia Murru and Oleksandr Stashevskyi contributed to this report from Kyiv.
