in a nearby town
Adds Severodonetsk “entirely” in Russian hands, separatists’ announcement of Russian and pro-Russian forces entering Lysytchansk, background on Desna, Biden’s departure for Europe, lack of progress on Sweden’s membership to NATO, according to Turkey
kyiv (awp/afp) – The strategic city of Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, the scene of a fierce battle in recent weeks, fell “entirely” on Saturday to Russian and pro-Russian forces, which also entered in the neighboring one of Lyssytchansk, where “street fights” took place, at the start of the fifth month of conflict.
kyiv has also accused Moscow of wanting to “draw” Belarus “into the war” after the firing, according to the Ukrainian army, of twenty missiles from this country, as well as planes, on an important Ukrainian military center, in Desna, in the north, on Saturday around 05:00 local time (02:00 GMT).
This village in the border region of Cherniguiv, where no casualties this time were to be deplored, had already been the target, on May 17, of strikes which, according to the Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelensky, had then caused 87 dead.
The first attacks carried out from Belarusian territory had also taken place at the very beginning of the invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24.
Joe Biden left for Europe on Saturday, where he intends to further consolidate, and over time, the ranks of Westerners against Russia.
The American president must first participate, on Sunday, in a G7 summit in southern Germany, where aid to Ukraine will be discussed, then, from Tuesday in Madrid, in another of the NATO.
Major advances of the Russian army
In eastern Ukraine, the Russian army recorded major advances on Saturday.
Severodonetsk is “entirely occupied by the Russians”, thus recognized at the end of the afternoon on television its mayor Oleksandre Striouk, the day after the announcement by the Ukrainian army of its withdrawal from this city of approximately 100,000 inhabitants. before the war to better defend the locality of Lyssytchansk, located on the opposite bank of a river, the Donets.
The separatists at the same time declared that they had “taken full control of the industrial zone of the Azot factory” in Severodonetsk and entered Lysychansk with the Russian military.
“Street fights are currently taking place there,” they added, without an independent confirmation being able to be obtained immediately.
Crucial progress on the ground for Russia, which wants to conquer the entire industrial basin of Donbass, already partially in the hands of pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
The Russian army, for its part, said it killed “up to 80 Polish mercenaries” in a bombardment, also destroying 20 armored vehicles and eight Grad multiple rocket launchers in high-precision weapons fire on the factory. zinc Megatex in Konstantinovka, in the eastern Donetsk region.
This information was not verifiable either, while Moscow frequently ensures “eliminating foreign mercenaries” who went to fight in Ukraine.
In Kharkiv (north-east), the second largest metropolis in Ukraine, which has resisted pressure from Russian troops since the start of the offensive, missiles are falling again daily on the city center.
During the night from Friday to Saturday, one of them hit an administrative building near the hotel where an AFP team was staying and a fire was caused, according to the Ukrainian emergency services. The building had been bombed before. “The Russians are finishing what they started,” a soldier on the spot told AFP on Saturday, who did not reveal his identity.
In the south, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that “more than 300 Ukrainian servicemen and foreign mercenaries and 35 heavy weapons units” had been “liquidated in one day in the Mykolaiv region”.
“Exhausted” units
At the same time, kyiv blasted Moscow’s condemnation of the green light given Thursday by the EU to Ukraine’s candidacy.
“It only shows the weakness of Russia,” tweeted the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba.
On Friday, Moscow denounced a “geopolitical grab” of the space of the Community of Independent States (CIS bringing together several countries of the former USSR) to “contain Russia”, ensuring that “this aggressive approach of the European Union has the potential to create new schisms and much deeper crises in Europe”.
The massive shelling in the east eventually made the Ukrainian soldiers give in, but without necessarily fundamentally changing the situation on the ground, according to experts.
“The Ukrainian units are exhausted, bloodless. They have had terrible losses with completely neutralized battalions”, explains a high-ranking French officer on condition of anonymity, referring to units of 300 or 400 men of which he is not remained only about twenty able-bodied.
But for all that, “the overall vision – a slow war of entrenched positions – has hardly changed”, assures AFP Ivan Klyszcz, researcher at the Estonian University of Tartu. “The withdrawal was probably planned before and can be considered tactical,” he analyzes, stressing that Ukrainian resistance has allowed kyiv to consolidate its rear.
The Ukrainian forces “are in the process of operating a professional and tactical withdrawal in order to consolidate positions that they will be better able to defend”, also judged an official at the Pentagon, on condition of anonymity.
“I stressed the need to achieve parity of fire with the enemy, which will allow us to stabilize the situation in the most threatened region of Lugansk” where Severodonetsk is located and now almost completely conquered by the Russians, has in this regard, declared the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriï Zalouzhniï, reporting on his Facebook page on a telephone conversation with his American counterpart, General Mark Milley.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that no progress had been made on Sweden’s desire to join NATO, after a telephone conversation with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena. Anderson.
Sweden and Finland asked to join the Atlantic Alliance, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but came up against Turkey’s blockage.
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