Ukraine army leaves city as EU candidacy in the works

After weeks of ferocious fighting, Ukrainian forces have begun retreating from a besieged city in the country’s east to move to stronger positions, a regional governor said Friday, the fourmonth mark in Russia’s invasion.

The planned withdrawal from Sievierodonetsk, the administrative center of the Luhansk region, comes after relentless Russian bombardment that has reduced most of the industrial city to rubble and cut its population from 100,0000 to 10,000. Ukrainian troops fought the Russians in house-to-house battles before retreating to the huge Azot chemical factory on the city’s edge, where they remain holed up in its sprawling underground structures in which about 500 civilians also found refuge.

In recent days, Russian forces have made gains around Sievierodonetsk and the neighboring city of Lysychansk, on a steep bank across a river, in a bid to encircle Ukrainian forces.

Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk have been the focal point of the Russian offensive aimed at capturing all of the Donbas and destroying the Ukrainian military defending it — the most capable and battle-hardened segment of the country’s armed forces. The two cities and surrounding areas are the last major pockets

of Ukrainian resistance in the Luhansk region — 95% of which is under Russian and local separatist forces’ control. The Russians and separatists also control about half of the Donetsk region, the second province in the Donbas.

Russia used its numerical advantages in troops and weapons to pummel Sievierodonetsk in what has become a war of attrition, while Ukraine clamored for better and more weapons from its Western allies. Bridges to the city were destroyed, slowing the Ukrainian military’s ability to resupply, reinforce and evacuate the wounded and others. Much of the city’s electricity, water and communications infrastructure has been destroyed.

In other news, the European Union agreed Thursday to put Ukraine on a path toward EU membership, acting with uncharacteristic speed and unity to pull the embattled country further away from Russia’s influence and bind it more closely to the West.

Meeting at a summit in Brussels, leaders of the EU’S 27 nations mustered the required unanimous approval to grant Ukraine candidate status. That sets in motion a membership process that could take years or even decades.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted his gratitude and declared: “Ukraine’s future is within the EU.”

NYT Ukraine’s withdrawal from the administrative center of the Luhansk region comes after Russian bombardment reduced most of the area to rubble.