At the start of the fourth month of the war in Ukraine, Russia said on Tuesday that it was determined to achieve all its “objectives”, intensifying its offensive against the last pocket of resistance in the Lugansk region in the east.
After having moved Russian forces away from the country’s two largest cities, the capital kyiv at the end of March and the beginning of April, then Kharkiv in May, the Ukrainians have recognized for a few days “difficulties” in the coal basin of Donbass, formed by the provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk.
“The next weeks of war will be difficult,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Monday evening.
“We continue the special military operation until all goals are achieved, regardless of the huge Western aid to the kyiv regime and the unprecedented pressure of sanctions,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei said the next day. Shoigu. The objectives set by the President [Vladimir Poutine] will be filled,” added Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.
Two cities in sight
Moscow is concentrating its firepower precisely on the Ukrainian redoubt in the Lugansk region in the east of the country, trying to surround the cities of Severodonetsk and Lyssytchansk.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense also referred to intense fighting in progress nearby, around the localities of Popasna and Bakhmout, the fall of which would give the Russians control of a crossroads which currently serves as an impromptu command center for a large part of the Ukrainian war effort.
Its inhabitants, in any case, are reluctant to flee, despite the risks: “People don’t want to leave”, laments its deputy mayor, Maxim Soutkovyï, in front of a half-empty bus ready to take civilians to safer places.
In this sector, “the enemy has improved its tactical position on the territory of Vasylivka”, admitted on Tuesday morning the staff of the Ukrainian army, which ensures that “the greatest hostile activity” is observed “near Lyssytchansk and Severodonetsk” which the Russians are trying to “encircle”.
“Severodonetsk is completely under the control of the Ukrainian authorities. But it is really very difficult. We understand that the Russians have now thrown all their forces either to seize it or to besiege the whole part of the Lugansk region which is controlled by Ukraine,” commented its governor, Sergey Gaïdaï, on Tuesday.
“Today we see that the number of shellings in Severodonetsk has increased […]. They just destroy the whole city,” he added, lamenting that four people were killed in the morning by a strike on a chemical factory where shelters were set up and another in the city center.
The fate of Severodonetsk is reminiscent of that of Mariupol, the great port city in the south-east practically razed to the ground after several weeks of siege.
“We have very heavy fighting in the regions of Gorlovka, Avdiivka, Maryinka, Novomaryinka,” said Eduard Basurin, a representative of the pro-Russian separatist forces in Donetsk, the same day.
Two pro-Russian separatist republics were proclaimed in 2014 in the Donbass and it was to defend them from an alleged “genocide” that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. This “special military operation”, in the words of the Kremlin, began a few days after Moscow recognized their independence.
Gradual return to normal on the other hand in Kharkiv, where the metro, which served for months as a shelter against bombs, was put back into service on Tuesday.
“terrorist state”
The southern front appears to be stable, although the Ukrainians claim territorial gains there.
The southern command reported, on the night of Monday to Tuesday, an “advance” of its divisions “through the Mykolaiv region in the direction of the Kherson region”, controlled by the Russians who introduced their currency there , the ruble. He accused the “occupiers” of killing civilians trying to flee by car.
Ukrainian forces are now pounding Russian positions with newly delivered Western artillery systems, in particular American howitzers, a spokesman for the Ukrainian army told AFP.
For his part, the mayor of Mariupol Vadim Boitchenko accused in a video communication with Davos, where a world economic conference is taking place, “the Russian occupation forces” of behaving in a “terrorist state”.
In this context, kyiv urges the West to deliver more armaments.
“The Russian offensive in the Donbass is a ruthless battle, the largest on European soil since the Second World War. I urge our partners to speed up the delivery of arms and ammunition,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba said on Tuesday.
“We have noted progress in the supply of 155 mm guns”, during a meeting Monday with Western officials, however tempered the Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksiï Reznikov.
A European Union embargo on Russian oil is also possible “within a few days”, estimated German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, while the subject does not currently have the necessary unanimity. within the EU, of which the French Minister Delegate for Europe, Clément Beaune, said he was “convinced” on Tuesday that Ukraine would one day be part of it.
Hundreds of children killed or injured
In three months of armed conflict, 234 children have been killed and 433 injured, the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Iryna Venediktova, denounced on Tuesday.
In total, thousands of civilians and soldiers perished, without there being a quantified toll. For the city of Mariupol alone, however, the Ukrainian authorities speak of 20,000 dead.
On the Russian side, Western sources estimate the number of soldiers killed at 12,000, a figure close to that recorded in nine years by the Soviet army in Afghanistan, while the Kremlin has admitted “significant losses”.
Ukraine, for its part, has not provided any assessment of the number of its soldiers put out of action.
The war has also upset the distribution of the population: more than eight million Ukrainians have been displaced inside their country, according to the UN. Added to this are 6.5 million who have fled abroad, more than half of them — 3.4 million — to Poland.
In Russia, where a bill is being prepared to eliminate the age limit for citizens of working age to enlist in the army, the authorities continue to show themselves intractable: a Moscow court ordered Tuesday the detention in absentia of two bloggers accused of discrediting Russian forces and their work in Ukraine.