Russia wins main battle in Ukraine Lt Gen Konashenkov

The Fall of Severodonetsk is Russia’s biggest victory since Mariupol.

The fall of the city after weeks of street fighting transforms the battlefield in the east of Ukraine to Moscow’s advantage. 

Russian forces have fully occupied Severodonetsk, the mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city said, confirming Ukraine’s biggest battlefield setback for more than a month after weeks of fighting to hold the strategic town and latest symbol of Ukrainian resistance. 

Russian missiles also rained down on western, northern and southern parts of the country on Saturday as Europe’s biggest land conflict since World War II enters its fifth month. 

The fall of Severodonetsk — once home to more than 100 000 people, and now reduced to a wasteland of rubble by Russian artillery — is Moscow’s biggest victory since capturing the port of Mariupol last month.

The fall of the city transforms the battlefield in the east of Ukraine where Moscow’s huge advantage in fire-power had until now yielded only slow gains. 

“The city is now under the full occupation of Russia,” the city’s Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said on national television. He said anyone left behind could no longer reach Ukrainian-held territory, as the city was effectively cut off. 

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Ukrainian attempt to turn the city’s Azot chemical plant into another centre of resistance had been thwarted. 

“As a result of successful offensive operations, units of the people’s militia of the LPR (Luhansk People’s Republic), with the support of Russian troops . . . completely liberated the cities of Severodonetsk and Borivske,” he said. 

“Tactical regrouping”

The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency described the fall of the city as a means for Ukrainian forces to regroup from Severodonetsk to higher ground in neighbouring Lysychansk. 

“The activities happening in the area of Severodonetsk are a tactical regrouping of our troops. This is a withdrawal to advantageous positions to obtain a tactical advantage,” said Kyrylo Budanov, head of Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. 

“Russia is using the tactic . . . it used in Mariupol: wiping the city from the face of the earth,” he said.

Meanwhile, Putin to make first foreign trip since February. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Turkmenistan and Tajikistan next week in what will be his first foreign trip since the launch of the military operation in Ukraine on February 24. 

In Dushanbe, Putin will hold talks with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon. Negotiations and a working dinner have been planned for the two leaders, the Rossiya 1 channel reported yesterday. Putin and Rahmon already met last month, when the Tajik leader became the only foreign head of state to attend the Victory Day parade in Moscow on May 9. 

The Russian president will then travel to another Central Asian country, Turkmenistan, where the VI Caspian Summit is scheduled to take place on June 29. The event in the capital city of Ashgabat will bring together the leaders of the countries with access to the Caspian Sea — Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. 

This will be Putin’s first foreign trip since his visit to China in early February for the opening of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing and talks with Chinese President               Xi Jinping. 

Travelling abroad has been complicated for Russian officials since the beginning of the military operation in Ukraine, which prompted international sanctions targeting the country and its citizens. 

A diplomatic scandal broke out earlier this month after Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Montenegro closed their airspace for the plane of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, forcing him to cancel a planned visit to Serbia. — Reuters.

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