#slovyansk

“The Ukrainian army retreated from the strategic city of Lysychansk on Sunday as Russia claimed a major victory by seizing control of the entire eastern Luhansk region.

Agence France-Presse reports:

The Ukrainian withdrawal followed weeks of fierce fighting and marked a decisive breakthrough for Moscow’s forces more than four months after their invasion and after turning their focus away from the capital, Kyiv.

Lysychansk had been the last major city in the Luhansk area of the eastern Donbas region still in Ukrainian hands and its capture frees up Moscow’s forces to advance on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in neighbouring Donetsk.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had earlier denied Russian claims of Lysychansk’s fall before the Ukrainian army announced the retreat on Sunday evening.

“The continuation of the defence of the city would lead to fatal consequences” in the face of Russia’s superiority in numbers and equipment, the army said in a statement.

“In order to preserve the lives of Ukrainian defenders, a decision was made to withdraw.

“Unfortunately, steel will and patriotism are not enough for success – material and technical resources are needed.”

Russian forces seized Lysychansk’s twin city of Sievierodonetsk last week after weeks of intense fighting.

-via The Guardian

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“Australia will send more than $100m in new aid to Ukraine including military equipment, as well as levelling sanctions on 16 new Russian officials, following prime minister Anthony Albanese’s secret trip to Kyiv.

Albanese tacked on a day visit to Ukraine at the end of his European trip for the Nato summit, where he met the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and toured parts of the country devastated by Russia’s aggression.

Albanese visited Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin, three towns in the Kyiv region that became synonymous with the brutality of Vladimir Putin’s invasion when evidence of mass killings and torture was uncovered after the withdrawal of Russian forces.”-via The Guardian

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“About 800,000 Ukrainians lost their homes as a result of the Russian invasion, reported Olena Shulyak, head of the Servant of the People party and deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada committee on the organization of state power.

Source : Shulyak, cited by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security

Shulyak's direct speech : "The Russian occupiers destroyed more than 15 million square meters of Ukrainian housing.

The most damage to the housing stock is in the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Chernihiv regions."

Details : According to the deputy, about 220,000 Ukrainians have already submitted applications for compensation due to destroyed housing.”-via Pravda (Ukrainian source)

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“Australia will provide 34 additional armoured vehicles to Ukraine and prohibit Russian gold imports, Reuters reports.

Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv alongside Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, said Australia would also impose sanctions and travel bans on 16 more Russian ministers and oligarchs, bringing the total number of Russian individuals sanctioned by Australia to 843.

Albanese said Australia would give Ukraine 14 more armoured personnel carriers and 20 Bushmaster vehicles and a number of drones.”-via The Guardian

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“At least six people have died in the attack on Slovyansk, local officials have said.

Donetsk regional administration spokesperson Tetiana Ihnatchenko told Ukraine’s public news network that 15 people had also been wounded in the attack.

The city’s mayor, Vadym Lyakh, said on messaging app Telegram that the attack was the worst shelling to hit the city recently and caused nearly 15 fires.

Kramatorsk, another city in the Donetsk region that is not occupied by Russian forces, is understood to have also experienced shelling.”

-via The Guardian

“More details about the assault on Ukraine’s eastern city of Slovyansk earlier today …

A child was among the six people who died during shelling from multiple rocket launchers, the area’s mayor has said.

“Provisional toll from today’s shelling: six dead, 15 injured. Among the dead, there is a child,” Vadim Lyakh said on Facebook.

A spokesperson for the Donetsk region earlier reported the same toll to Ukrainian media, AFP reports.

Lyakh had described the attack on Slovyansk as “the heaviest for a long time”, saying there were 15 fires and “many dead and wounded”.

Meanwhile, rocket strikes hit the city of Kramatorsk, also in Donetsk, for the second day in a row, mayor Oleksandr Goncharenko said.

The strikes, which hit a residential area and an unoccupied hotel, caused no casualties, he said.”

“The capture of the city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine by Russian forces has meant Moscow has made “genuine headway”, while its forces in the south have shown signs of “better cooperation”, western officials said.

Western officials said the sustainability of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine was “challenging”, but described the impact on their munitions and morale as “remarkable”.

But one official said it “remains highly uncertain whether Russia will secure the limits of Donetsk oblast this year”.

Russia has made “some significant command changes” in recent weeks, one official said, notably the recently appointed Gen Sergei Surovikin, who has taken over command of the southern group of forces overseeing the occupation of southern Ukraine and the advances on the Donbas from the south.

The official said, “He’s a controversial figure even by the standards of Russian general officers. It is unclear whether it’s his influence which has led to the recent successes around Lysychansk, but certainly there’s been better cooperation amongst groups of forces on the Russian side than we saw in the earlier phases of the war.”

There are “very serious issues” over the stocks of Russian munitions and of morale, an official said, while long-range weapons systems are starting to make a “significant operational difference for Ukraine”.”-via The Guardian

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“According to the NASA Harvest mission (a food security and agriculture program), Russia currently controls approximately 22% of Ukraineʼs agricultural land. In these territories, mainly winter crops are grown — wheat, rye and barley.

This is stated in the analysis of NASA Harvest satellite images.

NASAʼs analysis focused on the impact of the Russian invasion on the global food system. For this, specialists took data from Planet Labs satellites and the Sentinel-2 mission of the European Space Agency. The result showed that the fields where 28% of winter and 18% of spring crops (including corn and sunflower) are sown are under occupation.

Ukraine supplied 46% of the worldʼs oil exports, 9% of wheat exports, 17% of barley and 12% of corn on world markets, so the occupation of Ukraineʼs lands directly leads to the food crisis. In addition, part of the fields is already unsuitable for sowing due to shells and mines in the fields.

The blockade of ports also affects the crisis. Mykolaiv, Chornomorsk, Pivdenne and Odesa, which are constantly attacked by the Russians, are the main exporters of grain, but they cannot work.”-via Babel News

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The evacuation of civilians from Sloviansk continued on Wednesday as Russian troops pressed towards the eastern Ukrainian city in their campaign to control the Donbas region, as Ireland’s prime minister visited Kyiv to voice solidarity.

Agence France-Presse reports:

Sloviansk has been subjected to heavy bombardment in recent days as Russian forces push westwards on day 133 of the invasion.

“Twenty years of work; everything is lost. No more income, no more wealth,” Yevgen Oleksandrovych, 66, told AFP as he surveyed the site of his car parts shop, destroyed in Tuesday’s strikes.

AFP journalists saw rockets slam into Sloviansk’s marketplace and surrounding streets, with firefighters scrambling to put out the resulting blazes.

Around a third of the market in Sloviansk appeared to have been destroyed, with locals coming to see what was left among the charred wreckage. The remaining part of the market was functioning, with a trickle of shoppers coming out to buy fruit and vegetables.

-via The Guardian

More information can be found here from The Kyiv Independent.

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“Approximately 7,000 to 8,000 people remain in the eastern city of Severodonetsk but in the near future they will live in “awful conditions” with no water, gas or power supply, Oleksandr Striuk, the head of the military administration of Severodonetsk, said Wednesday.

Russian forces destroyed the material base of housing and utility services in this key city in the Donbas region, and they are looking for staff to help restore them but almost no staff members remain in Severodonetsk, according to Striuk.

Many utility and city workers had been evacuated previously, Striuk said.

He added that Russian forces who now occupy the city are working on organizing the Education Department for children to go back to school starting on Sept. 1.”-via CNN

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“A Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone, secured by Lithuania for Ukraine after a local crowdfunding campaign, is expected to be shipped to Kyiv in the coming hours.

The “Vanagas” (which means "Hawk" in Lithuanian), along with ammunition, arrived in the Baltic country on Monday, the country’s Defense Minister, Arvydas Anušauskas, tweeted. After a press introduction on Wednesday, Anušauskas added the drone would be transferred to Ukraine soon.

“Last hours of Bayraktar “Vanagas” in Lithuania. Very soon it will be delivered to Ukraine,” he tweeted.

The crowdfunding campaign was launched by Lithuanian online broadcaster Laisves TV last month and was able to secure around 6 million euros ($6.11 million) to purchase the drone.

The purchase was organized by the Lithuanian Defense Ministry, but it says that after learning it was being purchased via a crowdfunding campaign, the manufacturer donated the drone for free.

“Citizens of Lithuania collected funds for this aircraft, but inspired by the idea, the Turkish company 'Baykar', the manufacturer of 'Bayraktar', decided to donate it,” the Lithuanian Defense Ministry said in a statement. “1.5 million euros of the donated 5.9 million was allocated for arming the unmanned aircraft.”

It is not the first time Baykar has donated some of its drones to the Ukrainian armed forces. Last month, after a Ukrainian crowdfunding campaign secured enough funds to purchase three of the drones, the company said it would be donating them for free.

“We ask that the raised funds be remitted instead to the struggling people of Ukraine,” it said in a statement on June 27.”-via CNN

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“Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia to buy grain from Ukraine's occupied Zaporizhzhia region.

Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, has said the region plans to sell Ukraine’s grain to the Middle East, according to reports from Russian news agency Tass.

Tass said that the main countries involved in the deal were Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of stealing grain, a charge which Moscow has denied.