Until the day before yesterday, almost nobody had heard of Kreminna, the Ukrainian city of Lugansk that was occupied by the Russians last April. Now the small town, which had just over 18,000 inhabitants in 2020, before the war, could become the determining factor in the conflict. From there runs the front line: whoever controls it has the entire region under control. And after months of occupation, the Russian command left the city yesterday. Not only the military fled, but also some civilians who had come to work. Lugansk governor Sergei Haidai announced the liberation, but without triumphalism: the Russians would indeed not be too far away and the threat remains strong. “After the liberation of Kreminna there are two options: move to Starobilsk, the main logistics center of the region, or help Bakhmut and go to Rubishne and Severodonetsk”. According to Haidai, the Russian military command from Kreminna would indeed have moved to other occupied settlements.
The threat therefore remains strong, as in Kherson, another city liberated from occupation and caught in the crosshairs of a very harsh revenge. Hundreds of civilians, fearful of Russian bombing, flee in queues of cars as they leave the city. “The Russians used to bomb us seven to ten times a day, now it’s 70 to 80 times, that’s too much,” say some civilians. Dramatic situation also in Bakhmut, in Donbass. “Last year 70,000 people lived there. Now only a few civilians remain. There is no place that is not covered in blood. There is not an hour when the terrible thunder of artillery cannot be heard,” said Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy, choosing the city as a symbol of resistance. “Bakhmut is resisting, Ukrainian Donbass is resisting,” he said.
Bombs and rockets, although for the Russians on the field, defeats are more than victories, and still threatening words with various announcements from the Russian General Staff. When Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated that “there can be no peace plan for Ukraine that does not take into account today’s realities regarding Russian territory with four regions joining Russia,” thereby approving the farce referendums, foreign ministers suggested Lavrov closed the door on the American mediation hypothesis. “We maintain contact, and that is positive and useful, but as such there is no channel of dialogue between Moscow and Washington.” Not exactly an opening for a possible dialogue. MBas