Ukraine said on Sunday that the tactical withdrawal would save the lives of its soldiers who would regroup to launch a counter-offensive with the help of Western long-range weapons.
But Moscow said taking Lysychansk less than a week after taking neighboring Sievierdonetsk meant it had “liberated” Luhansk. She said she would give Luhansk the self-proclaimed, Russian-backed Luhansk People’s Republic, whose independence she recognized on the eve of the war.
The focus of the battlefield is now on the neighboring region of Donetsk, where kyiv still controls large swathes of territory.
“If the commanders of our army are pulling people out of certain points of the front, where the enemy has the greatest advantage in terms of firepower, and this also applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing,” he said. Zelenskiy said in his Sunday night video.
“That we will come back through our tactics, through the increased supply of modern weapons.”
Zelenskiy said Russia was concentrating its firepower on the Donbas front, but Ukraine would retaliate with long-range weapons such as US-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers.
“The fact that we protect the lives of our soldiers, of our people, plays an equally important role. We will rebuild the walls, we will reclaim the lands, and the people must be protected first and foremost,” Zelenskiy said.
Since abandoning an assault on the capital kyiv, Russia has focused its military operation on the industrial heartland of Donbas which includes the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, where Moscow-backed separatist proxies have been fighting Ukraine since 2014.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has informed President Vladimir Putin that Luhansk has been “liberated”, the defense minister said, after Russia earlier said its forces had captured villages around Lysychansk and surrounded the city.
The Ukrainian military command said its forces had been forced to withdraw from the town.
“Continued defense of the city would lead to fatal consequences. In order to preserve the lives of the Ukrainian defenders, the decision was taken to withdraw,” he said in a statement on social media.
Ukrainian officials, who say references to the “liberation” of Ukrainian territory are Russian propaganda, had reported intense artillery barrages on residential areas.
West of Lysychansk in the Donetsk region, at least six people were killed when the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk was hit by a powerful bombardment from multiple rocket launchers on Sunday, local officials said.
AN EXPENSIVE CAMPAIGN
Thousands of civilians have been killed and towns razed to the ground since Russia invaded on February 24, with kyiv accusing Moscow of deliberately targeting civilians. Moscow denies it.
Russia says what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine aims to protect Russian-speakers from nationalists. Ukraine and its Western allies say this is a baseless pretext for blatant aggression aimed at seizing territory.
While Russia would try to portray its Luhansk advance as an important moment in the war, it cost the Russian military dearly, said Neil Melvin of the London-based think tank RUSI.
“Ukraine’s position was never that they could defend all of this. What they tried to do was to slow down the Russian onslaught and cause maximum damage, while preparing a counter-offensive,” he said.
KHARKIV STRIKES
Zelenskiy said Russia had “brutally” hit Kharkiv, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk with rocket attacks, killing six and injuring 20 in Sloviansk alone.
Russia’s defense minister also said on Sunday he struck military infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the northeast, where a Reuters reporter said Ukrainian forces had built fortifications after night bombardments.
Outside a school in Kharkiv, some residents threw debris into a large crater created by early morning rocket fire, while others sought help to repair damaged homes.
“The woman was lucky to wake up early in the morning because the roof fell off exactly where she was sleeping,” resident Oleksii Mihulin told Reuters.
About 70 km (44 miles) from Kharkiv on the Russian side of the border, Russia also reported explosions in Belgorod on Sunday, which it said killed at least three people and destroyed homes.
“The sound was so loud that I jumped, woke up, was very scared and started screaming,” a Belgorod resident told Reuters, adding that the blasts occurred around 3 a.m. morning (0000 GMT).
Moscow has accused kyiv of numerous attacks on Belgorod and other border areas of Ukraine. kyiv has never claimed responsibility for any of these incidents.
MILITARY BASE TOUCH
Ukraine said its air force had carried out about 15 sorties “in virtually all directions of hostilities”, destroying equipment and two ammunition depots.
In the Russian-occupied southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol, Ukrainian forces hit a military logistics base with more than 30 strikes on Sunday, the city’s exiled mayor Ivan Fedorov said. An official based in Russia confirmed that strikes had hit the city.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
Ukraine has repeatedly called for an acceleration of arms deliveries from the West, saying its forces are heavily unarmed.