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After Luhansk, Russia sets sights on Donetsk

Having seized control of the Luhansk region, Russian forces set their sights on Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province on Tuesday as the five-month-long war entered a new phase.

It was on Sunday that the Russian invaders completed their conquest of Luhansk, one of two regions in Ukraine’s industrial powerhouse of the Donbas region.

In the biggest battle that Europe has seen in generations, both sides suffered heavy casualties in their fight for Luhansk, particularly during the siege of the twin cities of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk. Similarly to Mariupol in the Donetsk region, both cities were razed to the ground by Russian bombardment that claimed the lives of many civilians.

The city doesn’t exist anymore,” said Nina, a young mother who has fled Lysychansk to take refuge in the central city of Dnipro. She told Reuters “it has practically been wiped off the face of the Earth. There is no humanitarian aid distribution centre, it has been hit. The building which used to house the centre does not exist anymore. Just like many of our houses.”

The fight continues

On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces dug in around the city of Donetsk – a region where major cities are still under Ukraine’s control. Meanwhile, Russian leader Vladimir Putin told his troops to “absolutely rest and recover their military preparedness”. Still, Russian forces kept on fighting in other areas.

The night sky over the towns of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk flared up with explosions from Russian shelling, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk.

“They are now also the main line of assault for the enemy,” he said of the towns. “There is no safe place without shelling in the Donetsk region.”

Ever since the conflict started, Russia has pushed for forcing Ukraine into handing both Luhansk and Donetsk to pro-Moscow separatists, who have declared independence for the territories. Out of all UN member states, only Russia and Syria have recognised the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.

“This is the last victory for Russia on Ukrainian territory,” Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a video posted online. “These were medium-sized cities. And this took from 4th April until 4th July — that’s 90 days. So many losses.”

Mr Arestovych went on to say that besides the battle for Donetsk, Ukraine was hoping to launch counter-offensives in the south of the country. “Taking the cities in the east meant that 60 percent of Russian forces are now concentrated in the east and it is difficult for them to be redirected to the south,” he said, adding that “there are no more forces that can be brought in from Russia. They paid a big price for Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Little strategic gain for the Russians

According to some military experts, the hard-fought victory had brought Russian forces little strategic gain. The outcome of “the battle of the Donbas” remains in the balance.

I think it’s a tactical victory for Russia but at an enormous cost,” said Neil Melvin of the RUSI think tank in London. Comparing the battle to the major combat for meagre territorial gains characteristic of WWI, he recalled that it took the Russians 60 days to make “very slow progress.” He noted that “the Russians may declare some kind of victory, but the key war battle is still yet to come.”

Mr Melvin continued that the decisive battle for Ukraine was likely to take place not in the east, but in the south, where Ukraine had begun a counter-offensive to recapture territory.

“This is where we see the Ukrainians are making progress around Kherson. There are counter-attacks beginning there and I think it’s most likely that we’ll see the momentum swing to Ukraine as it tries to then mount a large-scale counter-offensive to push the Russians back,” he said.

Russian rockets reached Mykolaiv, a southern city on the main artery between Kherson and Odesa early on Tuesday, the city’s mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said.

Zelenskyy supports morale

“The armed forces of Ukraine respond, push back and destroy the offensive potential of the occupiers day after day,” President Zelenskyy said in a nightly video message on Monday, adding that despite Ukraine’s withdrawal from Lysychansk, its troops continued to fight.

Stressing the need to break the enemy, President Zelenskyy called the task “difficult” and one requiring “time and superhuman efforts. But we have no alternative.”

Although the Russian victory in Luhansk comes as its biggest since the capture of Mariupol in late May, it does not demonstrate significant strategic scoops.

Despite the province now being under Russian control, Serhiy Gaidai, the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk, told Reuters that Ukrainians “need to win the war, not the battle for Lysychansk … It hurts a lot, but it’s not losing the war.”

Mr Gaidai added that Ukrainian forces that had retreated from Lysychansk were now holding the line between Bakhmut and Sloviansk, preparing to deflect a prospective Russian thrust.

Whether Ukraine will be able to launch a counter-attack is contingent on the quantity and quality of weapons procured from the West. A crucial and much-demanded arm in the weaponry are rockets capable of evening the chances against Russia’s gargantuan firepower advantage.

“It is a matter of how quickly the supplies come,” said Mr Arestovych.

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