Bangalore: Lysychansk was once a city of 100,000 people in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, but it is now in ruins after the fall of the Russian army, with many residents still living in bomb shelters and dungeons. The city was completely calm on Tuesday with scorched buildings, overturned vehicles and debris, a testament to the brutality of the fighting that it has endured. Tatiana Glushenko, a 45-year-old Lisichansk resident, told Reuters there were still people in basements and bomb shelters, including children and the elderly. Glushenko said she and her family decided to stay in Lisichansk because of security concerns in other parts of Ukraine.
“The whole Ukraine is being shelled: Western Ukraine, Central Ukraine, Dnipro, Kyiv, everywhere. So we decided not to risk our lives and at least stay at home,” she said. But Glushenko hopes that peace will return to his city and “there will be some order”.
Since dropping the attack on the capital Kyiv earlier in its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has focused its military operations on the industrial Donbass heartland that includes the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where Moscow-backed separatist proxies have been fighting Ukraine since 2014.
Russia said the capture of Lisichansk on Sunday, nearly a week after the fall of the twin city of Svyardonetsk, gives it control of Luhansk – a major target of the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine on February 24, calling it a “special military operation” to ensure Russian security and protect the Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.
Russia says it does not target civilians, but nearly five months of war have killed thousands, displaced millions and flattened cities, especially in Russian-speaking regions in the east and southeast. .
For elderly Lysychansk resident Evgenia, who did not give her last name, the prospect of rebuilding her home from the ruins she left behind is a daunting task. “The roof is broken. You have to fix it, but how and how do you pay for it? Where? From whom? Winter is coming too soon, my dear,” said Evgenia, sitting in a dark shelter.
Ukraine and Russia: what you need to know now
Russian forces were engaged in heavy fighting backed by widespread artillery fire after launching a major offensive for Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said, a day after Moscow declared victory in the neighboring Luhansk province.
fighting
* Lysychansk was once a city of 100,000 people in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, but it is now in ruins after the fall of the Russian army, with many residents still living in bomb shelters and dungeons.
* Russian forces attacked a market and a residential area in the city of Sloviask near the front line in Donetsk, killing at least two people and wounding seven, according to officials.
* Russian-backed separatists have seized two foreign-flagged ships in the Ukrainian port of Mariupol southeast, saying they are now “state property”, in the first such move against commercial shipping, by Reuters The letters seen are shown.
* Reuters could not independently confirm Battlefield accounts.
* The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament said Ukraine has become a “terrorist state” and is doing everything to ensure that Russia does not stop at the borders of the Donbass region.
diplomacy and economy
* Ukrainian President Zelensky, while addressing a conference organized by the Economist, renewed his appeal for security guarantees. He said Europe needs to understand that the war in Ukraine is for Europe’s security and that Ukraine is the “fence” protecting it.
* An international conference in Lugano, Switzerland, to support Ukraine outlined a range of principles to advance Kyiv’s recovery and condemned Moscow’s actions.
* US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week asked G20 countries to pressure Russia to support UN efforts to reopen sea routes blocked by the Ukraine conflict and reiterated warnings to China not to support Moscow’s war effort Will ask for
* Former Russian President Medvedev said a perceived proposal by Japan to cut the price of Russian oil by about half the current price would lead to a market slump that could push prices above $300-400 a barrel.
human rights
* The UN human rights chief said arbitrary detentions of civilians in parts of Ukraine organized by Russia’s military and allied armed groups have become widespread, which has recorded 270 cases.
mention
* “The city doesn’t exist anymore,” said Nina, a young mother who fled Lisichansk in Luhansk province to seek refuge in the central city of Dnipro. “It’s practically wiped off the face of the Earth.”