lysychansk. Severodonetsk is lost, with her what remains of the Ukrainian Lugansk. Moscow troops are in the city, they have occupied it for more than 48 hours. They took it after 44 days of continuous bombing; assaults and retreats; air strikes and medium range missiles. If you listen to the voices from the Ukrainian side of the front it is a strategic retreat – comments Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Oblast -. Severodonetsk was the defense bastion of those 600 square kilometers of Lugansk on which the yellow and blue flag still flew. With its fall, Lysychansk, its twin city just to the west, was also attacked by Kremlin troops. An attack prepared for at least a week with the artillery concentrated on constantly bombarding the only road that connected it to the rear. To that Bakhmut now deserted, without gas and with electricity every other day.
Putin made no secret of it. He had mentioned it 11 times in his speech at the parade on 9 May and it was in those hours that the Russian offensive in Lugansk had begun. Now Russian state TV is already connecting with its envoys in the city. The scenes are the same: interviews with civilians and images of the Azot factory, the only refuge for those 500 diehard civilians who have chosen not to abandon their lands.
Entering Lysychansk is now impossible. The barrages are 20 kilometers from the city. The Russian artillery gives no respite and the drones chase everything that moves along that single strip of asphalt now a whole crater. Zelensky’s entourage did not comment. He alone confirms a retreat that was managed and organized by the National Guard. According to British intelligence, Lysychansk is defensible and can last for days. For the pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk it will fall in a few hours. “We are already fighting in the city. Much of the Southeast neighborhoods are in our hands. We have arrived at the mine ”- declared Andrei Marochko, lieutenant colonel at the head of the separatist militias via Telegram. Impossible to verify, but if that were the case, the fate of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk could turn dark again.
For days, missiles and artillery have given these two cities a respite. Many civilians populate the streets. In the refueling shops, gasoline now has crazy prices: 70 hryvnia is the equivalent of 2 euros. At the beginning of the war, the price of the super was 30 hryvnia (90 cents).
“Everything has doubled – explains Irina -. My shop is the last one in the village. We feed civilians and soldiers, but how difficult it is to find supplies ». Frozen foods arrive once a week from Dnipro. Meat and milk from Sloviansk. Raygorodok is a village of a thousand souls. “Whoever is not a soldier is gone – adds Irina – only the old are left”. Elders at the mercy of a war that wears them down.
Svetlana is 71 years old and does not know how to go to collect her pension. Every day she arrives at the gates of the country waiting for the means with humanitarian aid, but for 5 days she no longer arrives – she tells her in tears -. I do not know how to do. I have my retirement money in my checking account, but how do I withdraw it if the ATMs don’t work? I will die here, I feel it ». Yet on the northern front of the Donbas an apparent stillness has been hovering for days. Speculation is simple according to a soldier who will not be 20 years old. “Since all the bridges that go down from Liman have collapsed, the Russians have loosened their grip.” There is no land route to attack or the Russian priority is in the Southeast. For sure Lysychansk will be a bloodbath. Only a strategic Ukrainian retreat will reduce losses. There is only to decide where to place the new defensive lines. How much Donbass to grant to the Russian occupiers before betting everything on a counter-offensive. To keep every village is heroic and costs men and means. In the south, on the border with the separatist lands of Donetsk, Kadirov’s Chechen soldiers began fighting alongside Russian troops. Zolotoye has fallen and Gorskoe’s journey is about to fall. The Chechens advance street by street in search of Ukrainian soldiers. There is no confirmation, but they have already made dozens of prisoners.
The United States promises military aid, but it won’t arrive until mid-July. The Pentagon has revealed what the White House-authorized $ 450 million support “package” contains: 4 Himars rocket launchers, 18 patrol boats, 36,000 artillery shells, 1,200 grenade launchers and 2,000 machine guns. Weapons useful for the Ukrainian cause, weapons that will have to carry trained soldiers. Men who must survive this umpteenth offensive wanted by Putin that is putting every Ukrainian still in the motherland to the limit.
Russia, on the other hand, will supply Belarus with Iskander-M short-range missiles. That the Kremlin is increasingly trying to involve Minsk in the conflict is also clear from the attacks carried out last night: 40 rockets were launched on Ukrainian territory. They would have been carried out by Russian planes starting from Belarus. The explosions were felt in Kiev, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Kharkiv and other regions.