SLOVIANSK | Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered Russian forces to continue their offensive in eastern Ukraine following the capture of the strategic city of Lysytchansk, and as an international conference opened in Switzerland to prepare for the country’s future reconstruction.
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“The reconstruction of Ukraine is the common task of the whole democratic world” and “the most important contribution to peace in the world”, judged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking by videoconference at the opening of this meeting organized in Lugano, in the south of the Swiss Confederation.
The conference, which is due to end on Tuesday, is being held as the outcome of the war sparked on February 24 by the Russian invasion of Ukraine remains uncertain.
In Moscow, during a meeting with his Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu, the Russian President for his part gave the order to his military forces to “carry out their missions according to the plans already approved”.
On Sunday evening, the Ukrainian general staff announced the withdrawal of the forces engaged in Lyssytchansk, the last bastion held by Kyiv in the Lugansk region, which Moscow now says it fully controls.
For the Ukrainian forces, the urgency is now to contain the Russian advance towards the west and two major cities in the neighboring region of Donetsk: Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
“Gradual overflow”
After the capture of Lyssytchansk, the centerpiece of the plan to conquer Donbass, an industrial basin partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, “the enemy’s main effort […] aims at a gradual overflow” of Ukrainian forces on this axis, the Ukrainian general staff said on Monday.
According to the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kirilenko, ten people, including two children, died on Sunday in Russian strikes in Sloviansk and the surrounding area.
As the front line approaches Sloviansk, the Ukrainian authorities are calling on residents to leave the area.
The streets of the city were almost deserted Monday morning, according to AFP journalists on the spot. In the downtown market ravaged by a fire caused by a Russian strike, a few vendors offered basic necessities while others cleared charred debris.
Vendors and residents expressed their concern for the days and weeks to come, when the sound of the bombardments might be heard.
In Siversk, between Lyssytchansk and Sloviansk, the Ukrainian forces seem to want to hold a line of defense between this city and Bakhmout, further south. Residents interviewed by AFP refer to increasingly intense bombardments on Siversk in recent days.
“The enemy has intensified its shelling of our positions in the direction of Bakhmout,” confirmed the Ukrainian army staff.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said for its part that it had destroyed “seven Ukrainian command posts” in the past 24 hours, “including that of the 25th Airborne Brigade in the Siversk region”. Statements impossible to verify from an independent source.
$104 billion
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, in the northeast of the country, three civilians died in shelling that occurred before dawn on Monday, according to local authorities.
In Boutcha, a martyr city in the suburbs of kyiv, even if some have resumed planting flowers at the foot of buildings or busying themselves in the vegetable garden, the inhabitants do not yet dare to think of reconstruction, when the outcome fighting remains so uncertain. Here, the scars of the fighting are still visible everywhere: broken windows, bullet holes, gutted walls…
“We go to bed without knowing if we will wake up tomorrow,” breathes Vera Semeniouk, 65. “Everyone is back, starting to repair houses, many are putting up new windows. It would be terrible if it started once more and you had to leave everything once more.
While the outcome of the war is uncertain, the Lugano conference must try Monday and Tuesday to draw the outlines of the future reconstruction of Ukraine.
The “task is truly colossal” if only in the liberated territories, Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged on Sunday. The organizers of the conference were hoping for him to come in person, but he participated, as he is now used to, by videoconference in this meeting bringing together the leaders of Ukraine’s allies, international institutions but also the private sector.
The conference had been planned well before the war and was initially to focus on reforms in Ukraine and in particular the fight once morest corruption.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal and Speaker of Parliament Rouslan Stefantchouk arrived in Lugano on Sunday. They must meet there in particular the president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to lay the foundations of a “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine. Figures range from tens to hundreds of billions of dollars.
Robert Mardini, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, judged on the Swiss public channel RTS that if the reconstruction strictly speaking will have to wait for the end of the fighting, it is however vital to give “a positive perspective to civilians”.
The Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) has estimated the damage to buildings and infrastructure so far at nearly $104 billion. The country’s economy has already lost 600 billion dollars according to some estimates.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is to propose the creation of a new fund for Ukraine, which might reach 100 billion euros, according to informed sources.
The United Kingdom, one of Ukraine’s most active allies, will notably support the reconstruction of the city and the Kyiv region at the request of President Zelensky, the Foreign Office said on Sunday.
