Russia claimed on Sunday that its forces and separatist allies had taken control of Lyschansk, a strategic eastern city that Ukraine had been fiercely defending, fearing that by capturing it, Russia could seize the entire Luhansk region and move into neighboring Donetsk.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Luhansk People’s Republic – as it calls the pro-Russian separatist government that claims control of the eastern region from the Luhansk nomenclature itself – has been “liberated”, the Russian Defense Ministry reported Sunday on Telegram.
“As reported by General Sergei Shoigu, as a result of successful combat operations, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, together with units of the People’s Militia of the Lugansk People’s Republic, have taken complete control of the city of Lyschansk and a number of nearby settlements, the largest of which are Belogorovka, Novodroschisk, Maloriyazantsevo and Belaya Gora,” the ministry said in its letter. “.
Yury Sak, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, He told the BBC On Sunday, Lyschansk was not under the “full control” of Russian forces and their separatist allies.
However, he acknowledged that Ukrainian forces could withdraw from parts of the city amid “very intense” Russian attacks. “For the Ukrainians, the value of human life is a top priority, so sometimes we may fall back on certain areas so that we can take them back in the future,” Sack told the broadcaster.
In any case, he said, “the game will not be over” for the Donbass region if Russia captures all of Luhansk, the BBC reports. He said that other large cities, especially in the Donetsk region, are under Ukrainian control despite heavy missile attacks and artillery shelling, adding: “The battle for Donbass is not over yet.”
Earlier in the day, Serhiy Heyday, governor of the Luhansk region, warned that Russian forces were fortifying themselves in the Lysechansk region, and said the city was “burning.”
On Saturday, Russia said its forces had encircled the city of Lyschansk, which Ukraine had objected to. But the Ukrainian counterclaims may have been “old or wrong,” according to A Analytics of the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, which said Ukrainian forces may have made a “deliberate withdrawal” from the city.
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