Pro-Russian authorities warned this Monday that Ukraine will send additional troops to the Lugansk region (east), annexed by Russia, after retaking Kherson.
“There are reports that more and more troops are being transferred there, just below Svatove, including from Kherson, according to our intelligence services”Lugansk military spokesman Andrei Marochko told Russian state television Rossiya-24.
According to Marochko, Ukrainian troops try every day to breach Russian and pro-Russian defenses in Lugansk, which have repelled attacks.
“The situation in the line of contact is quite serious. In fact, the enemy tries daily to break our defenses from different directions, but the guys are steadfast, they don’t give up an inch of their land”he added.
Russia annexed the regions of Kherson, Lugansk, Donetsk and Zaporijia on September 30, as part of the offensive it launched on February 24 this year.
Moscow had already annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.
Ukraine and the international community in general do not recognize Russian sovereignty in the annexed regions.
Lugansk governor Serguei Gaidai, loyal to Kiev, said on Monday that Ukrainian troops had liberated Makiivka, about 41 kilometers southwest of Svatove.
“Including Makiivka, 12 settlements in the Lugansk region have already been liberated”said Gaidai on the Telegram social network, quoted by the Spanish agency EFE.
The Ukrainian governor also said that the Russians continue to attack the already destroyed city of Bilohorivka, west of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, on a daily basis.
Gaidai also reported a “large concentration” in Lugansk of Russian mercenaries and prisoners recently mobilized by the Wagner paramilitary group, controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine recaptured part of the Kherson region, including the eponymous regional capital, on Friday after Moscow ordered the withdrawal of thousands of troops in light of the Kiev counter-offensive.
Pro-Russian authorities have chosen the port city of Henichesk, on the southern bank of the Dnieper River, as the provisional capital of the Kherson region, the official Russian agency TASS reported on Saturday.
The recapture of Kherson is considered one of the main successes of the Ukrainian forces in the war with Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Kherson on Monday and hailed his troops’ victory as the “beginning of the end of the war”.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
The number of civilian and military casualties is unknown, but several sources, including the UN, have warned it will be high.
The war and sanctions imposed on Russia also disrupted the global economy, particularly the energy and food sectors, as the world attempted to recover from the crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic.
Source: DN
