Before the war Severodonetsk, a city in the Ukrainian province of Luhansk, in the Donbass region, had a population of just over 100,000. It wasn’t even one of the forty largest cities in Ukraine. Yet in the past month it has become the key battleground of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Russian troops occupy the residential areas. The Ukrainian armed forces and several hundred civilians, hit by artillery, took refuge in the industrial plant of Azot, in the west. On June 14, Russia destroyed the last bridge connecting Severodonetsk to the nearby city of Lysyčansk. “In many ways, the fate of the Donbass is decided there,” said Volodymyr Zelenskii, president of Ukraine on June 8. Why is Severodonetsk so important?
The city has had an exceptional weight in the political and military conflict between Russia and Ukraine for twenty years. In 2004, when protests against rigged elections broke out in Kiev, local politicians in Severodonetsk played a leading role in the independence protests and threatened to seek military aid from Russia. Ten years later, in 2014, protests overthrew the pro-Russian president of Ukraine, and Russia invaded Donbass while pro-Russian troops occupied Severodonetsk from May to July, until Ukrainian forces retook it. It has since remained in Ukrainian hands, just north of the line of contact that divides Russian and Ukrainian forces in the region.
A more modest pincer
On February 24 of this year, Russia invaded Ukraine again, planning to surround the Ukrainian forces in the Donbass with a large pincer movement, climbing north from the coast of the Azov Sea and south from Kharkiv to target the city. of Dnipro. But this maneuver proved too ambitious, and Russian forces resorted to more modest pincers – one push south from Izyum and another north from Popasna – to capture a smaller Ukrainian portion wedging into controlled territory. by the Russians.
Severodonetsk is located at the eastern end of that pocket and is the gateway to the northeast of the Donetsk province, the other part of the Donbass. It is an easier target for Russia because the more advanced Ukrainian forces have less cover from aviation and artillery.
Conquering it together with Lysyčansk would open a path west to Slovyansk, the first city that fell to the Russians in 2014, and Kramatorsk, an industrial center. Russia attacked Slovyansk from the north, but had to fight to break through. Ukraine is in an advantageous position and at least one attempt to cross the Sieversky-Donets River in May ended in disaster.
Control of Severodonetsk would offer another route, albeit not an easy one, since the Russians would still have to cross the river and storm nearby Lysyčansk, which is on a hill 150 meters higher than Severodonetsk. In this sense, that of Severodonetsk is by no means a decisive battle. But if Russia took it along with Lysyčansk, it would effectively control the entire Luhansk province. And if Slovyansk and Kramatorsk were to eventually fall, Russia would also control almost every major city in Donetsk province. This, in turn, would allow her to claim that she somehow managed to achieve her stated goal of starting the war, which is to “liberate” the Donbass.
Many expected Ukrainian troops to withdraw from Severodonetsk weeks ago. The city has little intrinsic significance beyond its recent history and Lysyčansk is a more defensible place. Instead, Ukraine has counterattacked and is resisting. One of the goals is to bog down Russian forces, buying time until more Western weapons arrive – US rocket launchers are on the way. On June 15, British military intelligence said Ukrainian resistance was preventing Russia from sending its troops elsewhere. A second goal is to inflict continued losses on Russia, further impoverishing her ranks. A third is that the city is a more favorable battleground for Ukraine’s preferred urban warfare tactics than long-range open-field artillery clashes, in which Russia holds the edge.
Resistance has come at a cost. Severodonetsk had escaped severe violence in 2014. Before the war it was a “very nice, clean and welcoming small town,” says Brian Milakovsky, who lived there for six years until January, dealing with humanitarian and development issues. It had experienced a small resurgence in recent years, says Milakovsky, after becoming the administrative capital of the region instead of the occupied city of Luhansk, and had welcomed refugees from other parts of the province. The sense of Ukrainian identity had grown. Severodonetsk “was by no means a city without a future,” he adds. Now, however, it is practically in ruins.
(Translation by Stefania Mascetti)