The separatists supported by the Russian army claimed on Saturday to have “totally” surrounded Lyssytchansk, a city in eastern Ukraine at the heart of intense fighting in recent days, claims denied in kyiv which still claims to “control” it.
“Fighting is raging around Lyssychansk. Fortunately, the city is not surrounded and it is under the control of the Ukrainian army,” Ruslan Muzychuk, a spokesman for the National Guard of Ukraine, told Ukrainian television. Earlier, a representative of the Lugansk separatist army, Andrey Marochko, quoted by the Russian news agency TASS, had claimed that “the Lugansk people’s militia (the separatist army, editor’s note) and the Russian armed forces have occupied the last strategic heights, which allows us to affirm that the locality of Lysytchansk is completely surrounded”.
The capture of Lyssychansk would allow the Russian army to then advance towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, two other large cities in the industrial region of Donbass
Another representative of the separatist authorities, Vitali Kisselev, clarified these assertions by telling TASS that the fighters “are now in the Chakhtar stadium area”, close to the center of this city which before the conflict had nearly 100,000 inhabitants. Lysychansk is the last major city in the Lugansk region controlled by the Ukrainian army.
It is the twin of that of Severodonetsk, conquered last week by Moscow after the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces after a battle lasting several weeks. The two towns are separated by the Donets River. The capture of Lyssytchansk would allow the Russian army to then advance towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, two other large cities in the industrial region of Donbass, which Moscow is seeking to conquer.