Ukraine’s military command confirmed late Sunday that its troops had been forced to withdraw from the city of Lysychansk, the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, one of two regions that make up the country’s eastern industrial heartland, the Donbas. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Vladimir Putin on Sunday that his forces had taken full control of Lysihansk and several nearby settlements, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported. Since abandoning an offensive on the capital, Kyiv, Russia has focused its military operation on Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatist proxies have been fighting Ukraine since 2014. The Russians control about half of Donetsk. Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk, said he expected the Donetsk cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut to come under heavy attack as Russia tries to take full control of Donbas. “The loss of the Luhansk region is painful because it is the territory of Ukraine,” Heidai told Reuters. “For me personally, this is special. This is the country where I was born and I am also the leader of the region.” The governor said that while the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Lysychansk “hurts a lot … it’s not losing the war.” He said the withdrawal from Lysychansk was “concentrated” and orderly and had been carried out to save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers who were at risk of being surrounded. “[Russian forces] they won’t move 100% of their troops to some front because they have to hold the line. If they leave their positions, then our people can launch some kind of counterattack,” he said. “However, for them the number one target is the Donetsk region. Sloviansk and Bakhmut will be attacked – Bakhmut has already started to be bombed very hard.’ Bakhmut, Sloviansk and nearby Kramatorsk are southwest of Lysychansk and are the main urban areas holding up Russian forces in Donetsk. Map of Donbas Monday Haidai said the weeks-long battle for Lysychansk had drawn Russian troops who could be fighting on other fronts and given Ukrainian forces time to build fortifications in the Donetsk region to make it “more difficult for the Russians there”. He added: “The [Russian] the tactics will be the same. They will shoot everything with their artillery, but it will be difficult for them to advance.” Heidai repeated calls for Ukraine’s western allies to provide more weapons, saying they “realized too late” what was happening. He said the country’s armed forces would launch a counterattack when they had sufficient long-range weapons. “They’re just shelling our positions around the clock from a distance,” he said of the Russians. An intelligence briefing on Monday from the UK Ministry of Defense said that Russian forces will now “almost certainly” turn to trying to take Donetsk. The briefing said the conflict in Donbass was “severe and corrosive” and this was unlikely to change in the coming weeks. The Ukrainian army’s general staff said Russian forces were focusing their efforts on pushing towards the Shiversk, Fedorivka and Bakhmut lines in Donetsk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged the loss of Lysychansk on Sunday night and said the area would be recaptured. “If the command of our army withdraws people from certain parts of the front where the enemy has the greatest fire superiority – this is especially true for Lysychansk – it means only one thing: we will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons ». Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Zelensky stressed he had a huge task ahead of him as he prepared to address leaders from dozens of countries and organizations gathering in Switzerland on Monday to strike down a “Marshall plan” to rebuild Ukraine. “The volume of work on already liberated territories is truly colossal,” he said. “And we will have to liberate over 2,000 villages and towns in eastern and southern Ukraine.” The two-day conference, held under tight security in the southern Swiss city of Lugano, had been planned well before the invasion and was originally to discuss reforms in Ukraine, before being repurposed to focus on reconstruction. Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
