Russia gains in the East, threatening to overrun Luhansk

DRUZHKIVKA, UKRAINE >> Ukrainian forces dug in for a last-ditch defense against Russian advances Wednesday in Luhansk province, where the invaders now threaten to overrun two major cities that had resisted their halting progress.

The prospect of a Russian takeover of the embattled cities, Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, left Ukrainian commanders with the stark choice to stay and fight, risking severed supply lines and the encirclement of thousands of defenders, or withdraw and forfeit the last major urban centers in Luhansk, part of eastern Ukraine's Donbas region.

For weeks, the Russians had been content to lay back and fire artillery and rockets on Ukrainian forces before trying to push forward with tanks and troops. This strategy culminated in an apparent breakthrough Wednesday as the Russians seized three strategic villages, the regional governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, conceded.

From the villages — Mirna Dolina, Podlisne and Toshkivka — Russian troops have gained higher ground to fire on Lysychansk, including with shorter-range artillery.

“The last city is Lysychansk, and it will be very hard here, a lot of good guys will die,” said Sergiy, a Ukrainian soldier defending the city who gave only his first name for security reasons.

While the villages are small, their collapse within days of one another amounts to a significant breach in Ukraine's defenses, bringing Russian forces to the doorstep of Lysychansk and threatening the dwindling supply routes into the city.

“The surprising aspect here is that Ukraine has chosen to reinforce as Russian forces inch closer to the city,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, a research group in Virginia. “Both cities, Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, could fall in the near term.”

That could open the way for Russia to seize Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk province, known collectively as Donbas.

Still, military analysts suggested it was premature to say Russia was on the cusp of a decisive turn in its four-month-old invasion.

The Russian advance was “a clear setback for Ukrainian defenses” in the region, although not necessarily the sign of a broader collapse, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a research group based in Washington.

Taking Lysychansk will likely require “further protracted battles with Ukrainian forces” in close combat, the institute said, similar to the vicious, block-by-block street fighting in cities like Sievierodonetsk and the southern port city of Mariupol.

Russia's recent gains have come at a high price, particularly to illequipped soldiers drawn from the Russian-backed separatist enclaves of Luhansk and Donetsk. British military intelligence officials said in a report Wednesday that the proMoscow Donetsk militia had lost 55% of its forces, killed or wounded, in the recent fighting.