UPDATE ON THE SITUATION – Russian and pro-Russian troops have conquered the city, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said. A decision which, if confirmed, would allow Moscow to progress in its plan to conquer the entire Donbass.
This Sunday July 3, the 130th day of the war in Ukraine, Russia claimed to have conquered Lysychansk and controlled the entire Lugansk region, a potentially key advance in the battle of Donbass in eastern Ukraine and Moscow accused Kyiv to have firedthree missilesabout a Russian town where local authorities reported four deaths.
Read alsoHow the war in Ukraine also transformed the world of intelligence
The Russians claim to control Lysytchansk and the entire region
Russian Defense MinisterSergei Shoigu informed“President Vladimir Putin”of the liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic“, after the capture of the city of Lyssytchansk, at the heart of intense fighting, according to an official statement quoted by Russian news agencies. Russian forces and their separatist allies have takencomplete control of Lyssychansk and other nearby towns, the most notable of which are Belogorovka, Novodrujesk, Maloriazantsevo and Belaya Gora“, adds this press release. AFP could not verify this information from an independent source.
SEE ALSO – Ukraine: “Impossible to say that Lyssytchansk is under Russian control”, assures Zelensky
Read alsoKramatorsk and Sloviansk under the threat of Russian bombs: the story of the special envoy of the Figaro
The capture of Lysytchansk, if confirmed by kyiv, would allow Moscow to progress in its plan to conquer all of Donbass, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine that is largely Russian-speaking and partly controlled by separatists. since 2014, and to advance towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, further west, where the inhabitants already live to the daily rhythm of warning sirens and bombardments.
Violent clashes
In Kremlin phraseology, the ongoing offensive in eastern Ukraine is aimed at liberating territories considered Russian. On Sunday morning, the governor of the Lugansk region, Sergey Gaidar, had hinted that the Ukrainian forces were rapidly losing ground to the attackers in Lysychansk, a city which had 100,000 inhabitants before the start of the war.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: “salient”, “cauldron”, “withdrawal”… The lexicon of the Battle of Donbass
“The Russians are moving into a district of Lysychansk, the city is on fire“, he had declared. “The occupiers have probably committed all their forces [dans une bataille extrêmement] brutalof systematic destruction of administrative buildings, added Serguiï Gaïdar. “They suffer heavy losses but stubbornly continue to advance“.
“Many dead after strikes on Sloviansk
Multiple rocket launcher fire on Sloviansk made on Sunday “many dead and injured“, announced the mayor of this eastern city which is directly under threat from the Russians. “Multiple rocket launcher fire on Sloviansk, the biggest in a long time. There are fifteen fires. Many dead and injured“, said in a video posted on Facebook the mayor of the city, Vadim Liakh.
Tetiana Ignatchenko, a spokeswoman for the Donetsk region to which Sloviansk belongs, told Ukrainian media Suspilne that the strikes hadsix dead and fifteen injuredand reiterated the authorities’ appeal to the inhabitants to leave the region, while the front line is only a few kilometers from Sloviansk. According to Ukrainian media, one of the city’s markets was notably on fire following these strikes.
Further south, the city of Kramatorsk, the administrative center of Ukrainian-controlled Donbass, was hit for the second consecutive day by Smerch rockets, according to the city’s mayor Oleksandr Goncharenko. These strikes, which hit a residential area and an unoccupied hotel, caused no casualties, he said.
Four dead in Belgorod
The Russian army also claimed to have shot down three Ukrainian missiles at dawn on Sunday, launched against the town of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine, where a local official had previously announced the death of at least three people after explosions.
“Russian anti-aircraft defenses shot down the three Tochka-U cluster missiles launched by Ukrainian nationalists against Belgorod. After the destruction of Ukrainian missiles, the debris of one of them fell on a housesaid Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
SEE ALSO – War in Ukraine: Russia accuses kyiv of launching missiles at the city of Belgorod
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Moscow has repeatedly accused kyiv of hitting Russian soil, particularly in the Belgorod region. At the beginning of April, Mr. Gladkov had accused Ukraine of carrying out an attack against a fuel depot in Belgorod with two helicopters.
Kharkiv under bombardment
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city in the northeast, residents were woken up again at 4 a.m. (0100 GMT)by rocket attacksRussians, according to the governor of the region, Oleg Sinegoubov, who also mentionedshotsRussians in the morning on several districts of its zone.
Read alsoWith the volunteers of the special forces of Azov and Kraken who liberate the Kharkiv region
On the southern front, the Ukrainian Regional Operational Command said in the morning that over the past 24 hours the Russian army had carried out “nine airstrikes with K-52 helicopter gunships and 2 bombings on Serpents’ Island ”, resumed Wednesday by the forces of kyiv in the North-West of the Black Sea.
From the same source, the building of a rest base located on the coast was damaged by a Russian missile which caused no casualties. For its part, the Ukrainian army says it has carried out five strikes with planes and helicopters on two ammunition warehouses and five points of concentration of Russian forces.
Minsk threatens
On the diplomatic level, Belarus, a neighbor of Ukraine and an ally of Moscow, seemed to send a warning to kyiv and its Western supporters on Saturday evening, fueling speculation about Minsk’s growing involvement in the conflict.
Read alsoWimbledon: the exclusion of Russians and Belarusians disrupts the tennis planet
“About three days ago, maybe more, an attempt was made from Ukraine to hit military targets in Belarus” but “Praise be to God, our Pantsir anti-aircraft systems intercepted all missiles fired by Ukrainian forcessaid Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. “We are provoked“, he launched, threatening to retaliate”instantlyto any enemy strike against the territory of Belarus“.
“Less than a month ago, I gave the order to our armed forces to have in sight, as we say now, the decision-making centers in your capitals”said Alexander Lukashenko, referring to missiles promised by Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as the Belarusian Polonez rocket launcher system.
Since Moscow launched the war, Belarus has served as a rear base for Russian forces, and Vladimir Putin recently announced that Moscow would deliver “in the coming monthsin Minsk Iskander-M missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Hundreds of Ukrainian towns destroyed
In a video message to Ukrainians on Saturday evening, Volodymyr Zelensky counted “2610 towns and villages» under Russian occupation. “But since the beginning of the war, the Ukrainian army is reached to release 1027”he assured.
SEE ALSO – War in Ukraine: 2,610 localities”under Russian occupation“, according to Zelensky
“Hundreds have been completely destroyed by the Russian army and need to be totally rebuilt“, he added. The question of the reconstruction of the country must be at the heart of an international conference Monday and Tuesday in Lugano, Switzerland.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: the artist who whispered in the ears of the dead
“It is not only necessary to rebuild everything that the occupiers destroyed, but also to lay new foundations for our life, for a Ukraine, safe, modern“, said the Ukrainian president, for whom this must go through “colossal investments »and «reforms»
SEE ALSO – War in Ukraine: strikes near Odessa are acts of “deliberate russian terror“, according to Zelensky