Ukrainian forces withdraw from Sievierodonetsk strategic lock
Ukrainian soldiers patrolling the city of Sievierodonetsk on June 20, 2022. © Oleksandr Ratushniak/Reuters
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The Ukrainians ordered their forces to withdraw from the strategic city of Sievierodonetsk on Friday, a sign of Moscow's progress towards its objective of total conquest of Donbass (east), the day after the validation by the European Union of the Kyiv's candidacy.
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Leaving Sievierodonetsk, the Ukrainian forces de facto admit their exhaustion and back down in the face of the Russian steamroller, but the Russian steamroller may not be able to exploit the loophole and change the course of the war.
Bombarded by Russian forces for weeks, Sievierodonetsk is a crucial step in their plan to conquer all of Donbass, an industrial basin in eastern Ukraine already partly held by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
The governor of Sievierodonetsk had already announced a fortnight ago that they could no longer resist, that they had to withdraw.
And after an intervention from kyiv, he announced the next day that he was able to retake Sievierodonetsk in 48 hours.
Which was obviously wrong.
UKRAINE _Son Dominique TRINQUANT Strategic error Severodonetsk - 3 p.m.
Anastasia Becchio
Western analysts have been warning lately: the rain of Russian bombs has ended up wearing down the morale of the kyiv troops, their units, their equipment.
Seeing a city fall, after several weeks of deadly fighting, is therefore logical.
“
The Ukrainian units are exhausted, bloodless.
They had terrible losses with completely neutralized battalions
”, explains a high-ranking French officer on condition of anonymity, evoking units of 300 or 400 men of which there remained only about twenty able-bodied.
“
Those who arrive as reinforcements know they are going to hell.
Perhaps we are witnessing a tipping point on moral wear and tear
“, he adds, referring to the euphoria of the first weeks during which the Ukrainians had blocked the Russian advance and forced Moscow to concentrate on the east of the country.
Sievierodonetsk fundamental for the control of Donbass
The loss of Sievierodonetsk, considered tactically fundamental for the control of Donbass, constitutes both a setback for kyiv and the symbol of a balance of power that is now complicated.
“
Zelensky has almost no more men to wage war
,” pro-Kremlin Russian political scientist Sergei Markov assured this week on Telegram.
“
NATO can send a lot of weapons.
But NATO is afraid to send its soldiers
”, he added, promising a rapid “
fall
” of the Ukrainian army with its “
biggest defeat after Mariupol
”.
I think that the Ukrainian forces do not really have the capacity today to launch counter-offensives.
General Trinquand on Sievierodonestsk and a potential counter-offensive
Anastasia Becchio
The Ukrainians, who have not given up on the twin town of Lyssytchansk, have no reason to anticipate a Russian breakthrough.
"
The overall vision - a slow war of entrenched positions - has hardly changed
", summarizes Ivan Klyszcz, researcher at the Estonian University of Tartu.
“
We cannot expect a massive Russian breakthrough.
The withdrawal was probably planned before and can be considered tactical
,” he says, pointing out that Ukrainian resistance has allowed Kiev to consolidate its rear.
(With
AFP
)
All of our daily, live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
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