Russia Claims Victory In Ukraine Luhansk Region (Update)
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
KYIV/MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Ukraine’s military has confirmed the withdrawal from the city of Lysychansk after Russia claimed complete control over the Luhansk area. Moscow said earlier that Russian and separatist forces took the last major stronghold in the Luhansk area.
Sunday’s announcements came as Russia’s military appeared to step up efforts to take over the entire eastern Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland.
Russia’s Chechnya region leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a Muslim, had published a video seen by Worthy News claiming to show his soldiers in the city of Lysychansk. In the film, one of their pro-Russia commanders declares the city is under complete Russian control, and “a clean-up operation” is underway.
And on Sunday, Russia’s defense minister Sergei Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin that all of Ukraine’s Luhansk region was “liberated.”
It followed intense battles in the region, confirmed the mayor of the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, a little more than an hour’s drive west of Lysychansk.
Mayor Vadim Lyakh said on social media that his city was hit by powerful shelling from multiple rocket launchers on Sunday.
He said there are 15 fires and that there are, in his words, “many killed and wounded” following what he called “the most powerful recent shelling” of the city.
MOSCOW’S DENIAL
Moscow has consistently denied targeting civilian sites, despite footage and eyewitnesses suggesting it does.
Russia’s Defense Ministry also claimed Sunday to have used high-precision weapons to destroy five command posts in Ukraine’s Donbas and Mykolayev regions.
It also said three ammunition depots were hit in the vicinity of Zaporizhzhia and a Ukrainian weapons base in Kharkiv.
The incidents occurred as people plunged into mourning after an apartment block was hit earlier in the Odesa area, killing at least 21 people and injuring dozens.
Moscow denied Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s claim that it was a ‘deliberate’ attack.
At the same time, Russian authorities said Ukrainian forces attacked a border city inside Russia, killing four.
HITTING RUSSIA
Russia’s defense ministry blamed Ukraine for the blasts in the city of Belgorod, the deadliest known episode affecting civilians in Russia since the war began.
While Ukraine has hit fuel and military targets in Russia’s border region, this is the first time that Moscow has accused Kyiv of targeting a significant city center on the Russian side of the border.
Russian officials said Ukraine had fired three Soviet-era missiles at Belgorod that were all shot down by Russian air-defense systems.
But they claimed that one of the missiles fell to the ground in central Belgorod, causing the destruction. The claims were not yet independently verified.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been ongoing for more than four months.
And Sunday’s clashes suggested a further escalation of the war, which had already claimed tens of thousands of lives.
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