Putin declares victory in Luhansk
Russian forces try to drive offensive deeper in Ukraine
POKROVSK, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, one day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining bulwark of resistance in the province.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin in a televised meeting Monday that Russian forces had taken control of Luhansk, which together with the neighboring Donetsk province makes up Ukraine’s industrial heartland of Donbas.
Shoigu told Putin that “the operation” was completed on Sunday after Russian troops overran the city of Lysychansk, the last stronghold of Ukrainian forces in Luhansk.
Putin said military units “that took part in active hostilities and achieved success, victory” in Luhansk, “should rest, increase their combat capabilities.”
Putin’s declaration came as Russian forces tried to press their offensive deeper into eastern Ukraine after the Ukrainian military confirmed that its forces had withdrawn from Lysychansk on Sunday. Luhansk’s governor, Serhii Haidai, said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had retreated from the city to avoid being surrounded.
“There was a risk of Lysychansk encirclement,” Haidai said, adding that Ukrainian troops could have held on for a few more weeks but would have potentially paid too high a price.
“We managed to do (a) centralized withdrawal and evacuate all injured,” Haidai said. “We took back all the equipment, so from this point, withdrawal was organized well.”
The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian forces were now focusing their efforts on pushing toward the line of Siversk, Fedorivka and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, about half of which is controlled by Russia. The Russian army has also intensified its shelling of the key Ukrainian strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, deeper in Donetsk.
On Sunday, six people, including a 9-year-old girl, were killed in the Russian shelling of Sloviansk and another 19 people were wounded, according to local authorities. Kramatorsk also came under fire Sunday.
An intelligence briefing Monday from the British Defense Ministry supported the Ukrainian military’s assessment, noting that Russian forces will “now almost certainly” switch to capturing Donetsk. The briefing said the conflict in Donbas has been “grinding and attritional,” and is unlikely to change in the coming weeks.
While the Russian army has a massive advantage in firepower, military analysts say that it doesn’t have any significant superiority in the number of troops. That means Moscow lacks resources for quick land gains and can only advance slowly, relying on heavy artillery and rocket barrages to soften Ukrainian defenses.
Putin has made capturing the entire Donbas a key goal in his war in Ukraine, now in its fifth month. Moscow-backed separatists in Donbas have battled Ukrainian forces since 2014 when they declared independence from Kyiv after the Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. Russia formally recognized the self-proclaimed republics days before its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
Since failing to take Kyiv and other areas in Ukraine’s northeast, Russia has focused on Donbas, unleashing fierce shelling and engaging in house-tohouse combat that devastated cities in the region.
Russia’s invasion has also devastated Ukraine’s agricultural sector, disrupting supply chains of seed and fertilizer needed by farmers and blocking the export of grain, a key source of revenue for the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, called for immediate economic aid to help the country rebuild even as fighting continues.
“The restoration of Ukraine is not only about what needs to be done later after our victory, but also about what needs to be done right now. And we must do this together with our partners, with the entire democratic world,” he said.
“A significant part of the economy has been destroyed by hostilities and Russian strikes. Thousands of enterprises do not work. And this means a high need for jobs, to provide social benefits, despite the decrease in tax revenues,” Zelenskyy said.
In an earlier video message address Monday to the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Switzerland about the needs of his war-battered country, Zelenskyy said the reconstruction is the “common task of the entire democratic world,” as his prime minister laid out a $750 billion recovery plan for when the guns of the Russian invaders fall silent one day.
“The reconstruction of Ukraine is not a local project, is not a project of one nation, but a common task of the entire democratic
world all countries, all countries who can say they are civilized,” Zelenskyy told hundreds of attendees in Lugano. “Restoring Ukraine means restoring the principles of life, restoring the space of life, restoring everything that makes humans humans.”
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said such a recovery would require a sort of “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine to help it rebuild.