Today, Monday, Russian and Ukrainian forces are engaged in fierce fighting in eastern Ukraine, as Russian soldiers, backed by intense aerial bombardment, seek to secure a strategic foothold. Meanwhile, Kyiv continues to receive material and military support from Western powers.
Russia reinforced its front on the border with Ukraine in Kursk with additional forces, while it announced the bombing of a Ukrainian shipbuilding facility in Mykolaiv. It also announced the downing of 15 Ukrainian marches and the interception of 9 rocket-propelled grenades.
In the latest field developments, the Ukrainian authorities reported deaths and injuries in Russian bombing of the city of Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, where the governor of Lugansk announced that Russian forces had already entered the center of the city of Severodnetsk.
And Ukrainian television quoted the Ukrainian General Staff as warning that the situation is complicated in the Donbass region, and that Russian forces are preparing to attack Sloveniask in Donetsk. The General Staff said that the Russian army temporarily transferred to positions controlled by more than 250 units of weapons and military equipment.
The governor of Luhansk noted that “Ukrainian soldiers continue to fight, but the situation is difficult,” and the governor of Luhansk accused Germany and Hungary of delaying the delivery of weapons to the Ukrainian army. He said that two civilians were killed and five wounded during the bombing operations as the Russian forces entered the outskirts of Sferodonetsk, noting that the Russian forces were attacking the city with all weapons and air support, and entered its southeastern and northeastern regions.
The governor of Lugansk added that the evacuation of civilians is underway from the city of Lysichank, which is adjacent to Severodonetsk, stressing that “there are no gas or electricity services in the city of Severodonetsk… one million people are isolated in the Severodonetsk region of eastern Ukraine.”
Britain: Russia suffered heavy losses
This comes as the British Ministry of Defense said today, Monday, that Russia appears to have suffered heavy losses in the ranks of low and middle-ranking officers in its conflict with Ukraine, which increases the possibility of a decline in its military effectiveness in the future.
In the latest British Military Intelligence report, the ministry said on Twitter that battalion and brigade commanders are now deployed in the most dangerous locations, while lower-ranking officials lead low-level tactical operations.
“With numerous credible reports of internal insurrections among members of Russian forces in Ukraine, a shortage of experienced and credible divisional commanders is likely to lead to an even greater decline in morale and a continuing lack of discipline,” the report added.
The ministry said the loss of junior officers is likely to exacerbate Russia’s problems with modernizing command and control.
Is the conflict prolonged?
And yet More than 3 months following the military operation launched by Moscow on February 24It seems that the conflict will continue despite mediation attempts to stop the fighting and reach a settlement.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky headed for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion into the east of the country, while Russian forces tightened their grip on the main cities in the Donbass region.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz asked Russian President Vladimir Putin during a phone call, Saturday, to enter into “serious direct negotiations” with his Ukrainian counterpart Zelensky, and to release 2,500 Ukrainian fighters who were holed up in the Azovstal industrial complex in Mariupol (southeast). They surrendered to the Russian forces.
Meanwhile, the Russian forces, which had withdrawn from the Kharkiv region and redeployed southward, advanced towards the major cities of Severodonetsk and its neighbor Lysechhansk in the Donbass.
“The next week will be very difficult,” said the Ukrainian governor of the Lugansk region, Sergey.
On Saturday evening, the leader of the Russian Republic of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov announced on Telegram that “Severodonetsk is under our complete control … the city has been liberated.”
In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that its forces had destroyed, using long-range and high-precision missiles, an important arsenal of the Ukrainian army in the Dnipro region (southeast of Ukraine).
To the west, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed control of the town of Lyman, which is a crossing point towards the major cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in the Donbass.
On Sunday, the Ukrainian military indicated that the Russian military presence was “significantly strengthening” in this region.
