Region’s governor says loss was painful and he expects Sloviansk and Bakhmut now to face heavy attack
Vladimir Putin has declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk and told Russian troops to rest and “increase their combat capabilities”, a day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining stronghold in the province.pull back from the city of Lysychansk
Since abandoning an assault on the capital, Kyiv, Russia has concentrated its military operation on Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatist proxies have been fightingSerhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk, said he expected the Donetsk cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut to come under heavy attack as Russia attempts to take full control of Donbas.
Bakhmut, Sloviansk and nearby Kramatorsk lie south-west of Lysychansk and are the main urban areas holding out against Russian forces in Donetsk.Haidai said the weeks-long battle for Lysychansk had drawn in Russian troops that could have been fighting on other fronts, and had given Ukraine’s forces time to build fortifications in the Donetsk region to make it “harder for the Russians there”.
An intelligence briefing on Monday from the UK’s Ministry of Defence said Russian forces would “almost certainly” switch to trying to capture Donetsk. The briefing said the conflict in Donbas had been “grinding and attritional” and this was unlikely to change in the coming weeks.
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