Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu “informed the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin, of the liberation of the Lugansk People’s Republic,” said a Defense Ministry statement regarding that region, whose self-proclaimed independence the Kremlin It has been recognized.
The governor of the Luhansk region, Sergei Gaidai, hinted yesterday that the Ukrainian forces were about to cede Lisichansk, a city that before the war had 100,000 inhabitants.
“The Russians are entrenching themselves in a district of Lisichansk, the city is on fire,” Gaidai said on Telegram. “They are attacking the city with inexplicably brutal tactics,” he added.
Impact
The conquest of Lisichansk – if confirmed – would allow Russian troops to advance towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, further west, practically ensuring control of the region, which had already been partially in the hands of pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
kyiv, however, is not resigned. Defense Ministry spokesman
Ukraine’s Yuriy Sak pointed out that the battle for Donbas will continue even if all of Lugansk falls, since “other large cities in the Donbas area, particularly in the Donetsk region”, are still under the control of his country.
At the same time, the Putin government accused Ukraine of having fired three missiles at Belgorod, a Russian city near the border, killing three people.
“Russian anti-aircraft defenses shot down three Totchka-U missiles launched by Ukrainian nationalists against Belgorod. After the destruction of the Ukrainian missiles, the remains of one of them fell on a house,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
The governor of that region, Viacheslav Gladkov, had previously announced the death of at least three people in strong explosions in that city.
The explosions also left four injured, damaged 11 residential buildings and 39 houses, Gladkov said on the Telegram network.
Leak
Since the start of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine on February 24, the Russian government has repeatedly accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out attacks on Russian soil, especially in the Belgorod region.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko – an ally of Putin – also stated that his Army had intercepted missiles launched from Ukraine, at the height of versions about the growing involvement of his country, an ally of Russia, in the war between its two neighbors.
“They provoke us. I must say that about three days ago, maybe more, they tried to bomb military targets in Belarus from Ukraine,” Lukashenko said. However, he assured that he has no intention of “fighting in Ukraine” because that would lead to an escalation of the conflict.
The mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, a city in southern Ukraine controlled by Russian troops, announced yesterday that the Ukrainian army put a Russian military base in the city “out of service” on Saturday night.
request for help
Meanwhile, the missiles continued to fall on Ukraine, killing dozens of people. Indeed, President Volodymyr Zelensky cited six attacks in his daily address to the nation late on Saturday.
“Fierce fighting continues along the entire front line in Donbas,” he said, also noting that “enemy activity in the Kharkov region is intensifying.”
In Siversk, a small town in Donetsk, a resident said that “the shelling continues day and night”.
Two people were killed and three wounded – including two children – in an attack on the town of Dobropillia, according to local Donetsk authorities.
Bombs also fell on residential properties in Sloviansk, in the heart of Donbas, killing a woman in her garden and wounding her husband, a neighbor said.
Source: Ambito
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