Volodymyr Zelenskyy adviser concedes last eastern Ukraine bastion could fall

Reuters

Kyiv/Konstyantynivka, Ukraine, July 3

Fighting intensified for Lysychansk, Ukraine's last big bastion in the strategic eastern province of Luhansk, as an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy conceded the city could fall.

Blasts also rocked the Russian city of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine, the regional governor said early on Sunday.

The explosions set a residential building on fire and three wounded people were taken to a hospital, Vyacheslav Gladkov posted on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia is seeking to drive Ukrainian forces out of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv since Russia's first military intervention in Ukraine in 2014.

Ukrainian troops on the eastern front lines describe intense artillery barrages on residential areas, while Kyiv says Moscow has intensified missile attacks on cities far from the main eastern battlefields, accusing Russia of deliberately hitting civilian sites.

Thousands of civilians have been killed and cities levelled since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what Ukraine and its Western allies say is an unprovoked war of aggression. Russia denies targeting civilians in what President Vladimir Putin calls a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" its neighbour.

Russian forces seized Lysychansk's sister city Sievierodonetsk, on the opposite side of the Siverskiy Donets river, last month after some of the heaviest fighting of the war.

Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador to Russia of the pro-Moscow self-styled Luhansk People's Republic, told Russian television, "Lysychansk has been brought under control," but added, "Unfortunately, it is not yet liberated."

Russian media showed video of Luhansk militia parading in Lysychansk streets waving flags and cheering, but Ukraine National Guard spokesman Ruslan Muzychuk told Ukrainian television that the city remained in Ukrainian hands.

"Now there are fierce battles near Lysychansk, however, fortunately, the city is not surrounded and is under the control of the Ukrainian army," Muzychuk said.

‘Very difficult path’

In his nightly television address on Saturday, Zelenskyy said it would be a "very difficult path" to victory but Ukrainians must maintain their resolve and inflict losses on the "aggressor so that every Russian remembers that Ukraine cannot be broken."

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