Russia pushes to block a second city in eastern Ukraine

Russian forces are trying to blockade a town in eastern Ukraine, the region’s governor said on Saturday, after their relentless assault on a nearby town forced Ukrainian troops to begin withdrawing after weeks of heavy fighting.

Russia also launched missile strikes in areas far from the heart of the eastern battles.

Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region, said on Facebook that Russian forces are trying to blockade the city of Lysychansk from the south. That city sits next to Sievierodonetsk, which has endured relentless assaults and house-to-house fighting for weeks.

After Haidai said on Friday that Ukrainian forces had started to withdraw from Sievierodonetsk, military analyst Oleg Zhdanov said that some of the troops were headed for Lysychansk. But Russian moves to cut off Lysychansk will give retreating troops little respite.

Russian bombardment has reduced most of Sievierodonetsk to rubble and reduced its population from 100,000 to 10,000. Some Ukrainian troops are holed up in the huge Azot chemical factory on the outskirts of the city, along with some 500 civilians.

Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk have been the focal point of the Russian offensive aimed at capturing the entire Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and destroying the defending Ukrainian armed forces, the most capable and battle-hardened segment of the country’s armed forces. . The two cities and surrounding areas are the last major pockets of Ukrainian resistance in the Lugansk region, 95% of which are under the control of Russian and local separatist forces. The Russians and separatists also control about half of the Donetsk region, the second province of Donbas.

Some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to the west, four Russian rockets hit a “military object” in Yaroviv, Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy said. He did not elaborate on the target, but Yaroviv has a sizeable military base that is used to train fighters, including foreigners who have volunteered to fight for Ukraine. That base was hit by Russian rockets in March, killing 35 people.

The Lviv region, although far from the front lines, has been hit by other rockets during the war, destroying fuel storage areas.

Around 30 Russian rockets were fired at the Zhytomyr region in central Ukraine on Saturday morning, killing a Ukrainian soldier, regional governor Vitaliy Buchenko said.

In the north, about 20 rockets were fired from Belarus into the Chernihiv region, the Ukrainian military said.

A senior US defense official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, on Friday called the Ukrainians’ departure from Sievierodonetsk a “tactical retrograde” to consolidate forces into positions where they can better defend themselves. This will add to Ukraine’s effort to keep Russian forces pinned down longer in a small area, the official said.

Following a failed attempt to capture Ukraine’s capital Kyiv in the initial stage of the invasion that began on February 24, Russian forces shifted their focus to Donbas, where Ukrainian forces have been fighting Moscow-backed separatists since 2014. .

After Ukraine’s repeated requests to its Western allies for heavier weaponry to counter Russia’s advantage in firepower, four US medium-range rocket launchers have arrived, with four more on the way.

The top US defense official said Friday that more Ukrainian forces are training outside of Ukraine to use the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, and are expected to return home with the weapons at hand. mid July. The rockets can travel about 45 miles (70 kilometers). Eighteen US coastal and riverine patrol boats will also be dispatched.

The official said there is no evidence Russia has succeeded in intercepting what has been a steady stream of military aid to Ukraine from the United States and other nations. Russia has repeatedly threatened to attack, or indeed has claimed to have attacked, such shipments.