The city of Lyssytchansk, attacked by the North and the South by the Russian forces, would be about to fall.
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The last bridge connecting Sievierodonetsk to Lyssytchansk is now impassable. The administrative capital of the province of Louhansk, almost entirely won over by the Russian army, is not entirely surrounded, but it is subject to the constant fire of Russian artillery and communications with the rear have become very complicated . “The situation is extremely bad,” admits the commander of the Louhansk police, Colonel Oleh Hryhorov, who goes back and forth between Bakhmout, his rear base, and the pocket of Louhansk.
What worries the Ukrainian fighters is also not Sievierodonetsk, the city having been considered lost for a few weeks, but the possible encirclement of its twin city, Lyssytchansk, which the Russian army attacks both by the north and south. If it fell, it would be the end of the pocket of Louhansk.
The Louhansk region is, with that of Donetsk, the priority target of Moscow since the failure of the offensive against kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. The conquest of the two provinces of Donbass, partially occupied since 2014, was also the official objective of Russia when the war was triggered, on February 24, when the president, Vladimir Putin, claimed to want to stop the “genocide” of the Russian -speaking in the Donbass. The population has since denied it, 90 % of the inhabitants having taken refuge elsewhere in Ukraine, or abroad.
In Sievierodonetsk, there are only a few thousand inhabitants left. They survive without water, without electricity, and now without refueling. Five hundred of them are refugees in the vast azot chemical factory. “Sievierodonetsk is the most bombed place” of Donbass and the civilian civilians “refuse to evacuate”, said the governor of Louhansk, Serhi Haïdaï.
The last practicable road
The question of the evacuation of azot civilians, who are entrenched there with city defenders, could be the last episode of the battle before the fall of Sievierodonetsk. The two enemy countries spoke of their fate, without achieving an agreement. For kyiv, the fact that they followed the combatants in the factory would indicate that they want to be evacuated to Ukraine. For Moscow, the fact that they are one of the last residents still in town means that they want to stay on the Russian side. Mr. Haïdai above all believes that “they think it is safer to stay there” for the moment.
In Lyssytchansk, from which Ukrainian artillery tries to slow down Russian progression, a missile struck, Friday, June 17, the Maison de la Culture transformed into a humanitarian center, where residents of the city are refugee who refuse them also the idea of an evacuation. Four people died. This is the second time that the shelter has been affected.
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