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Russian forces turn to Donetsk after capturing Luhansk


A grain cellar destroyed by Russian air strikes in the Donbas.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday congratulated the military on “liberating” the eastern Ukraine province of Luhansk after weeks of brutal fighting. A large part of the area’s infrastructure, including residential buildings, was destroyed and many civilians were killed, although the death toll remains unknown.

Local officials say Russian forces are now eyeing more parts of the neighboring Donetsk region of Donbas, with the province set to come under heavy shelling on Sunday.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said it was a “difficult Sunday in the Donetsk region”. [with] missile attacks and shelling throughout the area” and described numerous civilian casualties.

The regional governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, hopes Russian forces will focus their attacks on Sloviansk, a city in Donetsk with a pre-war population of about 100,000 first captured by Russian-backed forces held in 2014. It was recaptured three times by the Ukrainian army. several months later.

Haidai also named the city of Bakhmut as Russia’s main target.

Luhansk and Donetsk, collectively known as Donbas, have been the site of sporadic skirmishes between Ukrainian and pro-Russian troops for years. Moscow has called taking the Donbas an “unconditional priority.”

A Community Arts Center is destroyed after a strike in the city of Lysychansk in the Donbas on June 17, 2022.

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Russia has said its main goal in the war is to “liberate” the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, home to two breakaway, pro-Russian “republics”.

‘We will be back’

Ukrainian soldiers defending this eastern territory say they have come under overwhelming Russian firepower. Over the past few weeks, Russia has gained a significant advantage in the Donbas, as Ukraine has gradually made concessions to key cities and towns.

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that his country will regain the lost land.

“If our army commanders withdraw their troops from certain points on the front, where the enemy has the greatest advantage in firepower, and this also applies to Lysychansk, then it only means one thing,” Zelenskyy said in his Sunday nightly address.

“That we will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons.”

Soldiers ride on a tank as it is towed down a highway on June 20, 2022 near Bakhmut, Ukraine.

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Zelenskyy said Russia has enough missile launchers to destroy “city after city in Ukraine” and the fact that “they have concentrated most of their firepower in the Donbas.”

The president defended his decision to prioritize lives over land, noting: “It is equally important that we protect the lives of our soldiers, our people. We will rebuild the wall. city, we will regain the land, and the people must be protected above all else.”

A ‘Marshall Plan’

A number of government, private sector and international NGO leaders met in Switzerland on Monday to discuss the creation of a “Marshall Plan” for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

The county’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the country would need a massive $750 billion to recover from the Russian invasion.

Shmyhal also said that the Russian invasion has so far resulted in more than $100 billion in damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure. The war has been going on for five months; The longer it continues, the more likely that number will increase.

Zelenskyy, who spoke to conference attendees via video call, warned that it would take a “really huge” work to rebuild areas that had been recaptured by the Russian military. In addition, “we will have to liberate more than 2,000 villages and towns in eastern and southern Ukraine,” he said.



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