Russian forces were trying to surround Ukrainian soldiers in Severodonetsk, a strategic city in eastern Ukraine, on Tuesday, but kyiv forces said they were “holding their ground” on the 111th day of the war.
On Monday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once again demanded “modern” weapons from Westerners, citing the “terrifying” human cost of the Battle of Severodonetsk.
The capture of this city of 100,000 inhabitants, which the two armies have been fighting over for weeks, would give Moscow control of the Lugansk region and open the way to another large city, Kramatorsk, capital of the neighboring region of Donetsk. An essential step to conquer the entire Donbass basin, a mainly Russian-speaking region partly held by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
“Massive shelling destroyed a third bridge” connecting Severodonetsk to the neighboring city of Lyssytachansk, “but the city is not isolated, there are communication routes even if they are quite complicated,” assured the head of the administration of Severodonetsk, Oleksandr Stryuk.
“Russian troops are not giving up their attempts to take the city, but the (Ukrainian) military is holding out,” he added.
“The Russians are trying to encircle” the Ukrainians in Severodonetsk, in the neighboring town of Lysytchansk, and in the localities near Pryvillia and Borivské, declared for his part the regional governor, Serguiï Gaïdaï, who affirms that the forces of Moscow have received reinforcements from “two groups of tactical battalions”.
“The situation is extremely serious,” added the governor, who announced on Monday that Ukrainian forces had abandoned the center of Severodonetsk.
The large Azot chemical plant, where “540 to 560 people are refugees”, is constantly bombarded, according to Mr. Striouk. And if resupply is “difficult, there are” some reserves “in the factory, he said, lamenting that” the enemy is tearing their greatest enterprise to pieces.
A shell hit the peaceful garden of Maksym, with her piglets and chickens, instantly killing her mother Natalia and her husband Mykola, both 65 years old, found an AFP team in Lyssytchansk.
“The bomb fell right here,” Maksym said, pointing to a part of the garden. “I don’t know who did this, but if I did, I’d rip their arms off.”
Lyssytchansk is now practically deserted, with severed electric cables, charred shops, black smoke rising from houses. “The Russians are bombing the city center all the time,” said a local policeman. “It’s 24 hours a day, ‘non stop'”, adds his colleague.
The Russian army said it had launched missiles on “about twenty areas” of Donbass, as well as on the city of Kharkiv, further north. And having carried out air strikes on a hundred areas of “concentration of manpower and military equipment of the Ukrainian armed forces”.
“Terrifying” human cost
“The human cost of this battle (of Severodonetsk) for us is very high. He is just terrifying,” President Zelensky lamented Monday evening. kyiv reports 100 to 300 of its men killed every day.
“The Battle of Donbass will surely go down in military history as one of the most violent battles in Europe,” he said. And faced with the Russian steamroller, “only modern artillery will ensure our advantage”, hammered the president, saying he was confident in the ability of his army to “liberate the territory”. “We just need enough guns to handle all of that. Our partners have them”.
The head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Andriï Yermak also demanded on Telegram on Tuesday “more heavy weapons and rapid training of our soldiers. Everything else is seen as weakness.
On Tuesday morning, the presidency reported five civilians killed and 11 injured in the past 24 hours, in the regions of Kharkiv (east), Lugansk and Donetsk, and “night bombardments in various regions” (Sumy, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv).
“The enemy does not stop its attacks in the East”, summarizes the Ukrainian army in its morning report.
Washington began to deliver heavy equipment to kyiv, such as Howitzer howitzers at first, then advanced equipment such as Himars rocket launchers, high-precision artillery pieces with a range greater than those of the Russian army.
An acceleration of deliveries should be discussed on Wednesday in Brussels, during a meeting of the Contact Group for Ukraine around the American Minister of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Macron in Ukraine?
On the diplomatic level, French President Emmanuel Macron is due to travel to Romania on Tuesday to greet the 500 French soldiers who have been deployed there on a NATO base since the invasion of Ukraine. He who assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union until June 30 must then go to Moldova, before a possible trip to kyiv.
His long-awaited visit to Ukraine – which would be a first since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 – could take place in the company of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, according to German media. and Italians. The French presidency has not confirmed this information, stressing that “nothing has been decided” at this stage.
Such a visit would come as the EU must decide at a summit on June 23 and 24 whether to grant Ukraine official status as a candidate for membership of the European bloc. The European Commission must deliver its opinion before the end of the week.
“I think we have to give this signal to Ukraine, to be open to this candidacy”, declared the French Minister in charge of Europe Clément Beaune on France Inter radio. “We must give a positive signal as soon as possible”.
But he reiterated that candidate status was only the start of a membership process that “takes time” — years or even decades.
Fighting in the South
Besides the Donbass, fighting is also raging in southern Ukraine. During the night from Monday to Tuesday, the Southern Command of Ukrainian troops reported air battles and Russian helicopter attacks on Ukrainian positions in Mikolaiv and Kherson.
In Mikolaiv, a major port on the Dnieper estuary, the Russian advance was stopped on the outskirts of the city and the Ukrainian army dug trenches there, noted an AFP team.
The Ukrainians fear that the Russians will soon organize a referendum in the Kherson region – close to the Crimean peninsula – and other areas occupied by Russian forces, with a view to annexation to Russia.