The fighting is anchored in the region over which Ukraine and Russia have been fighting since 2014, where a journalist was killed on Monday
Three months of war have passed, thousands of people have died and more than €500,000 million has been made to return the war in Ukraine to its starting point: Donbas. The fighting is anchored in Donetsk and Luhansk. Kiev tries to drive out the Russian invaders.
The Muscovy army is trying to secure it as its own territory, controlling the entire strip in the south and east of the country as far as Crimea, thus closing the belt parallel to the Sea of Azov. In other words, both countries are struggling to dominate practically the same patch of land they’ve been killing each other for since 2014, while the least-affected provinces try to get back on their feet and restore others to some normalcy.
If anyone wanted to make a war blockbuster about what’s happening in Donbas right now, the plot would be divided into two major series: the confrontation of two artillerymen along the border and the street-by-street battle in Severodonetsk. Like Svitlodarsk and Limán, occupied a few days ago, and Mariúpol before, this city is a key piece. It paves the way to the two provinces and a mining basin.
Severodonetsk today is flat land. Six of the ten buildings have been destroyed by bombs. And that facilitates the Russian ground advance, without high floors from which Ukrainian snipers fire or buildings that can be converted into ambushes.
“The Russians are advancing towards the center of the city. The situation is very difficult,” Governor Sergei Gaidai said on Monday. Amid the attacks, French journalist Frederick Leclerc-Imhoff died from an invading attack while on board a car. who was “getting ready to evacuate a dozen people in an area that has come under enemy fire.” The reporter, an employee of the French network BFM TV, was fatally wounded in the neck when bullets and shrapnel from a mortar shell French President Emmanuel Macron lamented the death of Leclerc-Imhoff and reiterated France’s support “for those carrying out the difficult mission of informing”.
Kiev and Moscow throw everything at each other. It is arguably the fiercest confrontation in eight years of conflict in the region, with the exception of the brutal occupation of Mariupol, where 22,000 civilian bodies have already been rescued without removing most of the city’s ruins. The battle is already extending to Lisichansk, another focal point for the operation to capture the Kremlin. His army has deployed long-range artillery into the Donbas Gorge and is shaking the resistance fortifications with grenades and rockets.
The accumulation of Russian ground forces, coupled with the proximity of their country, which gives the invaders a clear logistical advantage with supplies, is proving deadly to the Ukrainians who, despite everything, are counter-attacking into Kherson and other enclaves to try and to retake part of its territory. country. The president, Volodímir Zelensky, traveled to Kharkiv on Sunday to impose medals on the army. Low morale becomes a new ghost for Kiev.
Many members of the civilian militias have left the front lines, frail without weapons and disheartened by the lack of support. There have been several trials for desertion. Uncertainty and fear also contribute to their march: if they don’t die in battle, they stand a good chance of falling prey to the Russians and facing an uncertain future. Pro-Russian authorities in Donbas announced yesterday that the soldiers of the Azov battalion who surrendered after the completion of the Azovstal steel plant could face the death penalty. Kiev has limited itself to pointing out that everything surrounding these fighters is “public” material, but at the moment “classified” and secret, adding even more concern. It has also been found that many foreign volunteers have returned to their country frustrated, tired or afraid.
The government is urging the West to ask for weapons to “turn around” the situation, though time is running out. The Czech Republic has sent material worth 24 million euros, France has pledged new supplies and so has the US. However, Washington almost certainly does not include multi-launch MLRS missile platforms. These projectiles are capable of entering Russia from Kiev and the White House fears that such a powerful weapon will increase tensions with the Kremlin “in extremis.”
Another problem is that, as the war becomes chronic, problems arise at home. The elections to the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, are scheduled for October 29, 2023 – provided the war crisis ends earlier and martial law is not extended – and that seems to break the unity that has existed since the start of the invasion between the officials and the opposition. This complains, for example, about the limited margin of public intervention of the deputies in a crisis where Zelensky assumes all media visibility and his office and the ministerial cabinet make the political decisions; that would limit the role of parliamentarians and their ability to explain what they do.
Apparently they’ve both started taking out their dirty laundry. The territorial leaders are demanding time on national television and the critical deputies shame the government for saying before the invasion that they planned their evacuation and that of their families and that in the end it didn’t happen.
On the other hand, Zelensky would exert exhaustive control over the work of every parliamentarian in this war. And to complicate matters, rumor has it that he could have a future political rival in the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Valeri Zaluzhni, known as the “Iron General” by Numantine resistance to Russian forces.
Source: La Verdad
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