The fighting continues, Saturday, July 2, in Lyssytchansk, a key city in eastern Ukraine that pro-Russian separatists claim to have “totally surrounded”, a claim denied by kyiv. For his part, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claims that his army shot down missiles fired from Ukraine at his country, an ally of Moscow. Franceinfo looks back on the highlights of the day on the war front in Ukraine.
Fighting continues around Lysychansk
The last major city in the Luhansk region controlled by the Ukrainian army, Lyssytchansk has been the subject of intense fighting for several days and gave rise to different versions on Saturday as to the situation on the ground.
On the separatist side supported by Russian forces, a representative of the Luhansk separatist army, Andrei Marochko, quoted by the Russian news agency TASS, said that the locality was “completely surrounded“.
“Fighting is raging around Lyssychansk. Fortunately, the city is not surrounded and it is under the control of the Ukrainian army”, Ruslan Mouzychuk, spokesman for the National Guard of Ukraine, replied to Ukrainian television.
The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) for its part evoked “offensive operations” carried out on Friday south and south-west of Lysytchansk in the “aim to encircle the city and cut off Ukrainian logistics routes”.
Sloviansk and Kharkiv still under Russian pressure
Also in the east, at least four civilians have been killed and 12 injured in Sloviansk since Friday morning, according to Donetsk region governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. A rocket attack notably hit inhabited houses on Friday evening, causing the death of a woman who was in her garden and injuring her husband, a neighbor told an AFP journalist on Saturday morning.
In Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, “the morning […] was particularly agitated”said regional governor Oleg Sinegoubov, according to whom missiles hit a district of the city without causing any casualties.
Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, said the Russian Air Force hit the local tractor factory in Kharkiv where troops and equipment from the 10th Assault Brigade were located. of Ukrainian mountain.
Alexander Lukashenko accuses kyiv of firing missiles at his country
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed his army shot down missiles fired from Ukraine at his country, amid speculation of Minsk’s growing involvement in the conflict between kyiv and Moscow.
“I have to tell you that about three days ago, maybe more, we tried from Ukraine to hit military targets in Belarus. Thank God, our Pantsir anti-aircraft systems intercepted all the missiles fired by Ukrainian forces”he said, quoted by the state news agency Belta. “I repeat to you, as I said more than a year ago, we have no intention of fighting in Ukraine”he assured, however.
Since the attack on the Kremlin against Ukraine on February 24, Belarus, an ally of Russia, has served as a rear base for Russian forces. Russian troops had notably set off from this country to try to take the capital kyiv, before giving up at the end of March in the face of Ukrainian resistance and withdrawing.