- Russian deminers sweep the captured Azovstal facility
- Ukraine says its forces repelled the latest Russian attack on Sievierodonetsk
- Russian forces control a largely uninterrupted portion of the east and south
Kyiv/MARIUPOL, May 23 – Ukraine said on Monday it had repelled the latest attack on an eastern city that has become the main target of the Moscow offensive since Russian forces finally captured Mariupol last week.
Russian forces tried to storm Sievierodonetsk but were unsuccessful and retreated, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said.
The city on the banks of the Seversky Donets River, which meanders through eastern Ukraine, has been Russia’s top target in recent days as Moscow sought to encircle Ukrainian forces to the east and fully seize Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
In Mariupol, where hundreds of Ukrainian militants finally laid down their arms last week after a nearly three-month siege, Russian demining teams combed the ruins of the massive Azovstal Steelworks.
A huge armored bulldozer bearing the white letter “Z,” which has become a symbol of the Russian attack, pushed aside debris as a small group of soldiers used metal detectors to pick their way through the rubble.
“The task is huge. The enemy laid their own landmines, we also laid anti-personnel mines while blockading the enemy. So we have about two weeks of work ahead of us,” said a Russian soldier walking past the Nomme de Guerre Babai.
“As of this writing, over a hundred explosives have been destroyed in the past two days. Work continues.”
An aide to the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol, who operates outside the now-fully Russian-held city, said remaining residents are now at risk of disease as sewers overflow amid the ruins. Ukraine believes tens of thousands died in the siege of the city of more than 400,000.
“Mariupol needs another evacuation of residents because of the growing threat of an epidemic,” Petro Andryushchenko wrote on Telegram. “The consequences of turning Mariupol into a ghetto will be catastrophic. The threat of an epidemic becomes a reality with every thunderstorm.”
Air raid sirens wailed over Ukraine Monday morning, sounding daily alerts of expected attacks by Russian forces in the east and south of the country, three months after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion to “denazify” the country.
“ERASE FROM THE VIEW OF THE EARTH”
Russia has focused its “special military operation” on the east since its troops were driven out of the area around the capital Kyiv and the north of the country at the end of March.
As of last month, Moscow has said its main effort is to seize all of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, collectively known as Donbass, that Russia claims on behalf of separatists.
Despite pouring its forces into these areas and launching massive artillery bombardments, it has made little territorial gains there, while meanwhile it continues to lose territory in a Ukrainian counterattack further north around Kharkiv.
But last week’s complete capture of Mariupol gave Russia its biggest victory in months. His forces now control a largely uninterrupted portion of the east and south, freeing up more troops to join the main struggle in Donbass.
In recent days it has launched a series of attacks in an attempt to capture Sievierodonetsk, a city that forms the easternmost part of a Ukrainian-held Donbass basin and one of the last parts of Luhansk province still outside of its influence.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russia was using scorched earth tactics and “erasing Sievierodonetsk from the face of the earth”. Moscow tried to penetrate the province from three directions, to overrun Sieverodonetsk, cut off a highway to the south of it and further west to cross the river at Bilohorivka.
Despite the recent attack, some Western military experts say that Russia may soon lose combat capability for offensive operations in eastern Ukraine and will have to switch to defending previously captured territory in the coming weeks. Western arms are pouring into Ukraine, giving Kyiv more power for a future counterattack.
“As their eastern offensive loses momentum, the Russians will inevitably have to shift to a defensive strategy in Ukraine. And in doing so, the Russian army will face a new set of difficult challenges,” wrote Mick Ryan, a retired Australian major general and defense analyst.
“The Ukrainian army will be able to decide where and when to attack the Russians.”
Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia likely suffered losses in three months in Ukraine in the 1980s comparable to losses in nine years in Afghanistan.
“A combination of poor low-level tactics, limited air cover, lack of flexibility and a leadership approach that is willing to amplify mistakes and repeat mistakes has resulted in this high casualty rate, which continues to rise in the Donbass offensive,” he said he. it said.
Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv and Reuters journalists in Mariupol Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Nick Macfie