The advancing Russian forces have previously surrounded the Ukrainian army. They occupy an important connecting street with Ukraine-controlled cities. A Ukrainian official said on Thursday.
Russia is trying to consolidate control of the Ukrainian industrial Elka Donbass region, where it has supported pro-independence groups since 2014. Thousands of troops are attacking Siviarodonetsk and Lysichansk from three directions in an attempt to encircle Ukrainian forces. If two cities spanning the Severscidonets River fall, almost all of the Donbass province of Luhansk will be under Russian control.
"Russia has the advantage, but we are doing what we can," said Oleksiy Gromov, deputy chief of the General Operations Department of the Ukrainian General Staff. Western military analysts see the war in the two cities as a turning point in the war.
Further south, in the Russian-controlled territory, Reuters reporters saw evidence of Moscow's advance in Svitlodarsk, where Ukrainian forces withdrew earlier this week. The city is now firmly under the control of pro-Russian fighters, who have occupied local government buildings and hung Soviet hammers and sickle flags on the doors.
Reuters drone footage from a nearby abandoned battlefield shows a green-marked hole in a green field surrounded by a dilapidated building. Pro-Russian fighters were roaming the trenches. Ukraine's military says 50 cities in Donetsk and Luhansk were hit by shelling on Thursday, killing nine civilians.
Russia's recent gains in Donbass suggest a change in pace after the Ukrainian garrison surrendered in Mariupol last week and a few weeks later, where Ukrainian forces advanced near Kharkiv in the northeast. Michael Kaufman, a defense analyst and director of Russian research at the US-based CNA think-tank, tweeted: "Recent Russian gains provide a clear test of expectations for the near term."
Russian troops have broken the Ukrainian line in Popasna, south of Sivirodonetsk, and are threatening to surround Ukrainian forces, he wrote. Vadim Denisenko, an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Ministry, said in a briefing that 25 Russian battalions were trying to encircle Ukrainian forces. The head of Ukraine's armed forces, Valery Jaluzhny, called for more Western weapons in the telegram, specifically "weapons that would allow our enemy to strike at great distances."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later warned that. The supply of weapons that could reach Russian territory would be a "serious step towards unacceptable growth." The Donbass region is now at the heart of President Putin's military campaign in Ukraine, says the BBC's Azadeh Moshiri in Ukraine. He wants to occupy the whole area. And that is why the Russian attack has intensified there. Russian forces are advancing on the city of Sevarodonetsk and Lysichansk from three directions.
If these cities were to be taken over, the whole oblast, that is, the whole region would fall into the hands of Russia, and the places where the Ukrainian forces were stationed to defend these cities would be largely ineffective.
Source: Reuters, BBC.
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