Battered & bloodied.. a retreat from hell
Ukrainian forces pull out of city
UKRAINE’S troops have retreated from key city Severodonetsk after weeks of the bloodiest house-to-house fighting of the war.
The withdrawal means that, apart from the city of Lysychansk, Russia controls the Luhansk region, leaving just Donetsk to conquer in Donbas.
The mainly Russian-speaking region is a massive priority for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has imposed a deadline on troops to take all of the Luhansk this weekend.
One unnamed official said the pullback by Ukraine from Severodonetsk was a strategically wise move.
The source said: “In moving the Ukrainian armed forces from Severodonetsk back, what they are doing is putting themselves in a position to better defend themselves.”
But the Russian victory may be hollow as Ukraine’s forces were making a huge incursion last night into the strategically important Kherson port in the south.
The Black Sea port has been occupied by the Russians since the start of their invasion, but there have been civil uprisings and armed resistance.
Yesterday, Dmitry Savluchenko, a senior Russian-imposed official, was killed in a car bombing there, and two of Moscow’s soldiers were shot dead and one wounded in a shooting at a cafe earlier in the week. Putin’s deadline to take Luhansk may leave areas such as Kherson vulnerable to a Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Since the invasion began on February 24 almost 35,000 Russian troops have died.
Moscow has tried desperately, but failed, to stop weapons and ammunition coming from the West, the US has revealed. US defence officials hope long-range artillery systems sent into Ukraine will be a game changer in its struggle against Russia in the east. Britain is playing a key role in getting weapons to Ukraine via a hub in Germany, using land, sea and air, but the routes are top secret.
Yesterday, after repeated demands to the West for more weapons, Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said medium-range US rocket launchers had arrived. The High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems are precision-guided and troops have had to get three weeks of training on their use before they can be moved to the front line.
It has been revealed that 18,871 Russian war crimes have been registered with Ukrainian prosecutors.