After withdrawing from Lysychansk – a city in the eastern Luhansk region – over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed in his nightly address on Sunday that Ukrainian forces would regroup and return to fight Russian troops in the city.
At the same time, he stressed that thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons coming from the West, they would be aided greatly to return to certain points of the front where Russian troops have the greatest fire superiority, in particular to Lysychansk.
Zelenskyy also warned on Sunday of the risk of the whole Luhansk region being fully occupied by Russian troops soon.
Having seized the neighboring Sievierdonetsk the prior week, Russian armed forces took control of Lysychansk, the last major Kyiv-controlled city in the eastern Luhansk region, after weeks of heavy fighting as its latest victory in its assault on Ukraine’s east, forcing the Ukrainian troops to retreat, the country’s military command said Sunday.
According to a statement from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the decision to withdraw was made in order to preserve the lives of the defenders of Ukraine.
The eastern region of Ukraine where the Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014 is a significant target for Russia. The self-styled people’s republics in Luhansk and Donetsk regions –the key industrial area of Donbas – have proclaimed independence and Russia recognized them as such prior to its full-scale invasion of the country in February.