The Russian advance in the Donbass, slow, bloody, inexorable

UA lifeline is what we call on a boat the rope that secures the sailors so that they do not fall overboard. In a war zone, it is the last way that allows evacuation civilians and supplies. When it yields, the city is considered surrounded. Lyssychansk and Sievierodonetsk, the last two towns in Luhansk oblast (district) still under Ukrainian control, are connected to Bakhmout in neighboring Donetsk oblast by a single road, the lifeline. Sad irony: this vital axis has become a deadly path. Sievierodonetsk and Lyssytchansk will not fall any time soon, the soldiers entrenched there say they want to fight there to the end. But the road is in the process of passing under Russian control and the threat of an encirclement…