Convoys of soldiers cross deserted towns, while artillery duels tear through the silence at the end of the day. This is today the banal scene of the cities of Donbass, from Bakhmut to Sloviansk via Kramatorsk. These are waiting cities. The front is getting closer. The war is already here, within artillery range. War is on the way.
The roughest front, at 99e day of the war started on February 24 by Moscow, it is Sievierodonetsk and Lyssytchansk, the most eastern cities of Donbass still under Ukrainian control, in the province of Luhansk. Sievierodonetsk is “80% occupied” by the Russian army, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Hayday said Thursday, June 2, and Lysychansk is being pounded mercilessly every day.
In Sievierodonetsk, Ukrainian fighters are still fighting street by street. “The fights are very hard, resumes the governor. It is not over, and I will only declare the fall of Sievierodonetsk if the Russian conquest is complete. » With some of the Ukrainian forces in Sievierodonetsk entrenched in an industrial zone, the situation could be reminiscent of that of Mariupol, where the long siege of the city has been extended by the siege of the last fighters in the Azovstal steelworks. kyiv also accuses Moscow of wanting to transform Sievierodonetsk into “New Mariupol”.
If the situation between the two cities of Donbass seems comparable in terms of destruction, the Russian army proving unable to conquer a city without first razing it, Serhiy Hayday affirms that “Sievierodonetsk will not be Mariupol”. The governor refuses to talk about a possible gradual evacuation of the combatants to Lyssytchansk, on the other side of the Seversky Donets river, because we are “in the field of military secrecy”, but it is nevertheless, at this stage of the battle, the crucial question. However, it seems that the Ukrainian power wants at all costs to avoid a new siege, synonymous with sacrifice for its fighters. Mr. Hayday acknowledges, however, that “Faced with Russian artillery that destroys everything, [les] fighters must withdraw gradually”.
Steamroller
The Russian steamroller, superior to the Ukrainian army in the Donbass both by its air capabilities and by the power of its artillery, has already transformed Sievierodonetsk into a field of ruins. The city would be “90% damaged”, according to the governor, and the inhabitants who remained there live without water, without electricity, without food. A chemical production plant was hit by air raids this week, triggering a huge pink cloud. The governor mentioned “a tank of nitric acid”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced strikes “blind” and “simply crazy”.
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