SEVERODONETSK, Ukraine (Washington Insider Magazine) – After weeks of bombing and battle with Russian forces storming the area, Ukrainian soldiers will withdraw from a significant eastern city, a local official announced on Friday.
Soldiers protecting Severodonetsk would “battle for every inch,” according to regional governor Serhiy Haidai. However, Russian artillery had hammered them as they were trapped back behind a factory on the outskirts of the city.
He admitted defeat early on Friday and declared that the nation’s military would have to retreat.
Since Russia shifted its attention from its failed drive on Kyiv to making advances in the nation’s east, Sievierodonetsk has become the center of the conflict. According to NBC NEWS, Ukraine’s military will now abandon the besieged city in an attempt to prevent being encircled despite suffering significant losses during their desperate effort to hold out.
Officials and experts have been debating for weeks whether to withdraw or continue fighting in Severodonetsk, with the Ukrainian military calculating the advantages of halting the Russian assault with the significant cost of life it has suffered.
In the Luhansk region, which combined with adjacent Donetsk makes up the Donbas, Sievierodonetsk is one of just 2 cities that is still under Ukrainian control.
Gov. Haidai stated in his statement on Friday that 90% of the city’s structures were damaged. The adjoining village of Mykolaivka had also been captured, he said, by Russian soldiers.
All that now separates Russia from total control of one-half of Ukraine’s commercial heartland is the twin city of Lysychansk, around which Moscow’s forces have made considerable advances in recent days. Lysychansk, which has higher land and located on the opposite end of the Seversky Donets River, will now take the impact of Russia’s attack.
According to Orysia Lutsevych, a research fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, the imperative to prevent the encirclement of soldiers and preserve lives is what spurred the pullout. However, gaining control of the largest city in the area also enables Putin to declare some success and move forward with a more concerted attack on Lysychansk, she added.
Brutal artillery confrontations have characterized this stage of the war, and Kyiv has pleaded with the United States and its allies in the West to deliver more of the heavy weapons it needs to fend off Moscow’s soldiers.
The delivery of a potent long-range armament system provided by the United States was reported by Kyiv on Thursday. Washington claims it has received guarantees the missiles won’t be used to hit Russian territory because it fears an escalation with Moscow, which possesses nuclear weapons.
The street-by-street struggle for the city, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, might influence how the larger conflict for the nation’s east plays out.
