Artillery Attacks In Donbas Relentless, Luhansk Military Chief Says As Kharkiv Targeted Again

By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service June 22, 2022

Russian forces pounded the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine on June 22 as they sought to completely encircle the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the embattled cities of Lysychansk and Syevyerodonetsk in the Luhansk region.

Serhiy Hayday, head of the military administration in Luhansk region, where the twin cities are located, said Ukrainian forces were facing massive and relentless artillery attacks in Lysychansk.

"The Russian Army is massively shelling Lysychansk," Hayday wrote on Telegram. "They are just destroying everything there....They destroyed buildings and unfortunately there are casualties."

Strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, were the worst in weeks and were aimed at "terrorizing the population," said Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych in a video address.

Arestovych said the shelling, which caused at least 10 deaths in the Kharkiv region over two days, was mean to "distract us and force us to divert troops" from the main battlefields in the Donbas.

Britain's Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin early on June 22 that the outcome of the war will likely depend increasingly on the ability of the warring sides to generate and deploy reserve units to the front.

The British bulletin highlighted what it called the "extraordinary" attrition rate among the Moscow-backed separatist forces in the Donetsk region, which, based on figures published by the separatist authorities -- more than 2,100 killed and almost 8,900 wounded -- is equivalent to around 55 percent of its original force.

The report said the separatists appeared to be equipped with outdated Russian weapons and equipment.

It noted that Russian regular forces, which haven't published official casualty figures since March 25, are likely to have suffered similarly high losses.

Ukraine has not published official casualty figures, which it keeps secret, but various officials including President Volodymyr Zelenskiy have suggested as many as 100 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed every day.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a group of European newspapers that the defense intelligence service believes that Russia's momentum in the war in Ukraine will slow in the next few months as its army exhausts its resources.

In comments released on June 22 by Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Johnson said President Vladimir Putin's forces were pushing forward in the eastern Donbas region, wreaking destruction, but at a heavy cost in soldiers and weapons.

In the next few months, "Britain's intelligence service believes that Russia "could come to a point at which there is no longer any forward momentum because it has exhausted its resources," Johnson was quoted as saying.

"Then we must help the Ukrainians to reverse the dynamic. I will argue for this at the Group of Seven (G7) summit," he said.

The G7 summit, bringing together the heads of state of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States, is scheduled to begin on June 26 in Germany.

"In as much as the Ukrainians are in a position to start a counteroffensive, it should be supported. With equipment that they demand from us," he said.

A victory for Ukraine -- or failure for Russia -- would at least see Ukraine regain the status quo that was there before Russia invaded, he said.

The G7 also is likely to discuss the fate of a Russian turbine blocked in Canada and blamed for reducing gas supplies to Germany, Canada's natural resources minister was quoted as saying in June 22.

"If you talk to the Germans, they are very, very concerned about" a decline in gas supplies allegedly caused by the missing turbine, Jonathan Wilkinson told Reuters.

"I'm sure it'll come up at least in the corridors of the G7...I wouldn't hold my breath that we're going to find a resolution before the end."

Gazprom last week cut deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline at the Portovaya compressor station, saying the move was necessary "due to untimely return of gas pumping units from repair by Siemens." The equipment was sent to Canada for repairs.

Germany called the move a "political decision" and said the repairs did not warrant a reduction in gas flow to the extent that Gazprom announced.

On the battlefield, Russian forces captured two towns near the embattled cities of Lysychansk and Syevyerodonetsk in the Luhansk region, Ukraine's military said on June 21.

The captured towns -- Pidlisne and Myrna Dolyna -- are in the direction of Toshkivka-Pidlisne, Ukraine's General Staff said in its evening report.

The Ukrainian command also said Russian forces had had partial success in the area of Horske and in the direction of Bila Hor, while Ukrainian soldiers successfully repulsed an assault in the direction of Vysokiy.

Ukraine confirmed earlier that Russia had taken the frontline village of Toshkivka.

British intelligence said Russia's offensive, backed by intensive heavy artillery fire, had the primary objective of enveloping the Syevyerodonetsk area from Izyum in the north and Popasna in the south.

Despite mounting casualties, the intelligence bulletin said Russia was "highly likely preparing to attempt to deploy a large number of reserve units to the Donbas."

Zelenskiy said the military situation was very difficult. "That is really the toughest spot. The occupiers are pressing strongly," Zelenskiy said in an evening video address.

In Syevyerodonetsk, Ukrainian defenders held on to the Azot chemical plant in the city. About 500 civilians are sheltering at the plant, and Hayday said in an interview with AP that Russian forces were turning the area "into ruins."

The Ukrainian command also said its forces repulsed a reconnaissance attempt in and around Metyolkine, which Ukraine has confirmed was captured by the Russians.

The head of the Kharkiv regional state administration, Oleh Synegubov, said at least 15 civilians were killed in the region by Russian shelling on June 21.

Six died in and around Kharkiv and another six in Chuhuyiv, some 40 kilometers southeast of Kharkiv, Synegubov said. Three died in Zolochiv, 40 kilometers northwest of the city.

The command reported Russian shelling of settlements in Kramatorsk, Bakhmut, Avdiyivka, Novopavlovsk, and Zaporizhzhya.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, BBC, CNN, and TASS

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-eu-status- intensive-fighting/31907656.html

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