Ukraine withdrawing troops from Sievierodonetsk as Russia advances in east
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • 4 years ago • 4 commentsBy: Alexander Smith and Yuliya Talmazan
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Ukrainian forces will retreat from a key eastern city after weeks of bombardment and battles with invading Russian forces, a local official said Friday.
The regional governor, Serhiy Haidai, previously said troops defending Sievierodonetsk would "fight for every inch." But they had been pinned back to a factory on the edge of the city and battered by Russian artillery.
Early Friday, he conceded the battle was lost and said Ukrainian troops would have to pull back.
"Unfortunately, we will have to withdraw our servicemen from Sievierodonetsk because it makes no sense to be in broken positions," he wrote in a post on the messaging app Telegram. "The number of dead is growing." In a post on Twitter, he said that the troops "will move away from the city to new, more fortified positions."
A troop carrier full of Ukrainian soldiers returns from the front line in Sievierodonetsk, on June 22, 2022. Johanna-Maria Fritz / Ostkreuz
Sievierodonetsk has for weeks been the focal point of the war, after Russia switched its aimfrom its unsuccessful advance on Kyiv to making gains in the east of the country. Ukraine has suffered heavy losses in its desperate attempts to hold out, but its troops will now surrender the besieged city in an effort to avoid encirclement.
A senior U.S. defense official called the retreat a "professional tactical retrograde," intended to put the Ukrainians in a position where they can better defend themselves.
Russian gains continued to be incremental — "inch by inch" — and had come at great cost to its military, which has suffered heavy casualties and heavy equipment losses, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The Russians are showing the signs of wear and tear and the progress is inch by inch, where there is progress, the official said.
Whether to retreat or keep fighting in Sievierodonetsk has been a topic of debate among both officials and analysts for weeks, with Ukraine's military weighing the benefits of holding up the Russian advance with the huge loss of life it has endured.
The Institute for the Study of War, an American think tank, says that although "Ukrainian troops continue to suffer high casualties" in the region, they have also "fundamentally accomplished their objective in the battle by slowing down and degrading Russian forces," according to its daily briefing Thursday.
Until now, Sievierodonetsk has beenjust one of two cities still under Ukrainian command in the Luhansk province — which together with the neighboring Donetsk makes up the Donbas.
In his message Friday, Haidai said that 90% of the city's buildings had been destroyed. He added that Russian forces had also taken the nearby village of Mykolaivka.
Now, twin city Lysychansk, around which the Kremlin's troops have made notable gains in recent days, is all that stands between Russia and full control of one half of Ukraine's industrial heartland. Lysychansk lies on the other side of the Siverskyi Donets River and occupies higher ground, but will now face the brunt of Russia's assault.
The withdrawal is "motivated by the need to avoid the encirclement of troops, to save lives," said Orysia Lutsevych, a research fellow at the London think tank Chatham House. But claiming control over the region's main city also "allows (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to claim some victory, and proceed with more consolidated assault on Lysychansk," she said.
This phase of the conflict has been marked by brutal artillery exchanges, with Kyiv urging the United States and its Western allies to send more of the heavy firepower it needs to counter Moscow's forces.
On Thursday, Kyiv announced the arrival of a powerful long-range weapons system supplied by the U.S. Fearing an escalation with nuclear-armed Moscow, Washington says it has been given assurances the rockets will not be used to attack Russian soil.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the street-by-street battle for the city could determine the direction of the broader fight for the country's east.
"This is a very brutal battle, very tough, perhaps one of the most difficult throughout this war," he said in one of his nightly video addresses. "Sievierodonetsk remains the epicenter of the encounter in Donbas," he added. "Largely, that is where the fate of our Donbas is being decided now."
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Fuck I wish we could do more to help them....
I really truly do, but outside of a straight up lend/lease program (which we aren't even really capable of anymore) I don't know how much more we can help outside of weapons shipments and training without getting directly involved in the war and risking a nuclear confrontation.
Help the Ukrainians kill as many Russians as possible is the only aid we can provide, the rest is up to them.
bunch of asshole not commenting.
Sadly, much of the American public has grown weary of the Ukrainian war... Other issues draw the focus. There are so many bad things going on in the world, and in America... It is difficult for people to focus on much more than the difficulties in their own lives.
Reality is finally setting in.
The typical Russian ground and pound is taking it's toll. Numbers are resources over opponent's better training and tactics. One of these days Russia will learn modern warfare and be truly scary.
Ukrainian troops and fascist militias can't be trained fast enough in modern US weapons. They are needed in numbers at the battlefield. By the time they get a small portion trained; and the new weaponry deployed so that more troops can be trained in the field; Russia will have entrenched themselves in the south.
This war will go on as long as Ukraine is willing to take losses. The most they can hope for is a bloody stalemate- which becomes less likely by the day. At what point does Ukraine lose enough troops that they can no longer replace them in the field of battle? Even with militias training anyone willing to pick up a gun?