‘Hellish battles’ as fight for Luhansk intensifies
The fate of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region hangs in the balance as Russian forces intensify their efforts to seize control.
Ukraine said yesterday the village of Toshkivka, south of Lysychansk, fell to Russia earlier this week and was now being used as a base to bombard the city. ‘‘Hellish battles’’ were continuing in Severodonetsk, the regional governor said, while Lysychansk was ‘‘constantly suffering from enemy fire’’.
The mayor of Severodonetsk said up to 8000 people were still holed up in his city, while others had been transported to Russian-held areas.
Russian and Ukrainian forces have been battling for control of Severodonetsk, the administrative capital of the Luhansk region, for nearly two months as the Kremlin seeks to capture the last Ukrainian-held part of the region.
Ukraine said it had inflicted ‘‘significant losses’’ in an attack on Russian- occupied Snake Island in the Black Sea, where a naval blockade is preventing Ukrainian grain exports. Moscow said its forces repelled the attack on the fortified island.
Ahead of a European Commission summit today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conducted a marathon session of calls with leaders across the continent yesterday to maximise his country’s chances of being granted candidate status for membership of the European Union.
The Kremlin may be planning a ‘‘rebrand’’ of its Ukraine invasion, after officials ordered that banners featuring the pro-war Z and V symbols be removed from prominent buildings.
Inspectors in Moscow told the A Fair Russia – For Truth political party to take down a banner in the city, citing ‘‘numerous’’ complaints from people. Officials in Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia, acted after a teenager argued that banners outside the mayor’s office violated regulations on public advertising. A banner was also removed from the facade of a military veterans’ office in Perm, in the Urals region of central Russia.
Children who decorated the windows of a cultural centre in western Russia’s Pskov region with Zs and Vs were also told to remove the symbols. An official told state TV that only neutral images could be displayed.
The letters Z and V were initially seen on Russian tanks and armoured vehicles invading Ukraine in February. Russian defence officials said they stood for ‘‘Za pobedu’’ and ‘‘Sila v pravde’’, which translate as ‘‘For victory’’ and ‘‘Strength in truth’’. They have failed to capture the public imagination, however, and are mainly seen in government offices and on police cars. Critics have said that the Z symbol, also used by Nazi forces during World War II, resembles a swastika.
Meanwhile, Russian separatists in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine have lost more than half their fighters, according to figures cited by British intelligence. The Donetsk People’s Republic had admitted that 2128 military personnel had been killed and 8897 wounded since the start of the year, the Ministry of Defence in London said.