Russia is “suffering huge losses” and losing hard-fought ground in the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk after invading units started retreating from the key industrial center, Ukrainian officials asserted Saturday.
The dramatic turnabout, which could not be independently confirmed, represented a rare successful counter-offensive against Russian forces, which had recently been steadily advancing in Ukraine’s eastern territories.
It was the first time Ukraine claimed to have conducted a large counter-attack in Severodonetsk, a city of 100,000 and the last major municipality in the disputed Luhansk oblast under Ukrainian control, after days of losing ground in the country’s embattled east.
Russia had “previously managed to capture most of the city,” Sergiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region said in a televised address Saturday, The Guardian reported. “But now our military has pushed them back.”
Later Saturday, Oleksandr Stryuk, the head of the city’s military operations, said that Ukrainian forces were able to build a line of defense in Severodonetsk, according to The Kyiv Independent.
Both sides of the war have claimed to have inflicted huge casualties in the fighting for the city — a battlefront that military experts believe could determine which of the two countries has the momentum for a prolonged war of attrition in coming months.
Haidai — who oversees the territory where Severodonetsk is located — said he expects the new supply of US-made weapons to seal the deal in gaining back control of the city.
“They are moving forward step-by-step. They are simply destroying everything with artillery, aircraft, mortars, tanks,” he said. “But as soon as we have enough Western long-range weapons, we will push their artillery away from our positions. And then, believe me, the Russian infantry, they will just run.”
In recent weeks, Russia has concentrated its forces in Severodonetsk, among the biggest ground battles of the war, as the Kremlin appeared to center on its military capturing one of two eastern provinces it claims on behalf of separatist proxies.
Independent information from Severodonetsk has been difficult to obtain, since lines of communication have been cut and the city remains fiercely contested. Haidai previously estimated that about 70 percent of the city had been in Russian hands before recent Ukrainian breakthroughs.
Russian-controlled territory had been reduced to roughly 50 percent, according to the Kyiv Independent. The city has been targeted by brutal shelling for weeks from Russian forces.
Haidai said he expected US-made weaponry to seal the deal in Sievierodonetsk. REUTERS/Serhii Nuzhnenko/File Photo
Russian bombing in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, eastern Ukraine. AP Photo/Francisco Seco
A self-propelled howitzer 2S1 Gvozdika of pro-Russian troops fires a leaflet shell in the direction of Sievierodonetsk to disperse information materials from their combat positions in the Luhansk region REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko/File Photo Ukrainian military officials acknowledged that eastern Ukraine would remain a focal point of Russian aggression.
“Until the end, we believed that our enemy would not begin a large-scale invasion on all fronts,” said Brigadier General Dmytro Krasylnykov, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Meanwhile, Kyiv rebuked French President Emmanuel Macron for saying it was important not to “humiliate” the invaders.
“We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means,” Macron said in an interview published on Saturday.
He said he was “convinced that it is France’s role to be a mediating power.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted an indignant response: “Calls to avoid humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France and every other country that would call for it.”
With Post Wires
