Ukraine: Russians control ‘about half’ of Sheverodonetsk

LAST UPDATE: 12.57

Russian forces control “about half” of the eastern Ukrainian city of Sheverodonetsk, the head of the city administration told national television on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Earlier, the governor of the city of Luhansk, where the city is located, said Russian forces now control “a part” of Sheverodonetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine that they have been bombing and occupying for weeks.

“The situation is very complicated. Part of Sheverodonetsk is controlled by the Russians,” Sergei Gaidai told the Telegram.

He added, however, that the Russians “could not move freely” as Ukrainian fighters “remain” in the city.

“The enemy is planning an operation to clear the neighboring villages,” Gaidai added, adding that there was still no news from the three doctors who had been missing since Monday.

Yesterday, the governor of Luhansk province had indicated that Russian forces had advanced to the center of Sheverodonetsk, a city of about 100,000 inhabitants before the war, much of which has now been destroyed and abandoned.

Sheverodonetsk, a city of 100,000 before the war, has been bombed for weeks by Russian artillery and separatist guerrillas. Dozens of civilians have been killed there.

Sheverodonetsk and Lisichansk are located more than 80 kilometers east of Kramatorsk, which became the administrative center of Ukrainian Donbass after pro-Russian separatist rebels occupied the eastern part of the valley in 2014.

Attack on Severodonetsk lasts longer than Russian forces had hoped

Russian troops have seized about a third of the city of Severodonyevsk in eastern Ukraine, but the operation to seize it is taking longer than expected, the pro-Russian separatist leader told Russia’s state-run TASS news agency earlier.

The blows of the Russian artillery have turned much of Severodonietsk into wreckage. Russian forces have entered the southeast and northeast of the city, but Ukrainian defenses are delaying their advance on Donbas.

“We can already say that one third of Severodonetsk is now under our control,” Leonid Pasetsnik, leader of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Lugansk, told TASS. Fighting is raging in the city, where Russian troops are not advancing as fast as they would like, he continued.

However, “we want above all to keep the city’s infrastructure afloat,” he added.

The promotion of the Russians is complicated by the fact that there are several chemical plants in the area of ​​this industrial city.

Lugansk was recognized as an independent state entity by Russia shortly before the Russian army invaded Ukraine on February 24. Kyiv and its allies in the West consider the region part of Ukrainian territory. Russia has been focusing its military effort lately on occupying the entire Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledges that the “maximum firepower” of Russian forces has been transferred.

In the south, Kyiv said its forces had repulsed Russian troops in defensive positions in Andriyivka, Lozove and Bilohorka, villages on the south bank of the Inhulets River, which borders Kherson province, where Moscow is trying to consolidate control.

The United Kingdom says Russia is slowly invading Ukraine’s Luhansk region

The British military intelligence service said on Tuesday that Russia was advancing slowly in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, adding that concentrating its forces in one small area increases the risk for other areas.

“Progress has been slow, but gains are being maintained. Roads to the region are likely to remain under Ukrainian control,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Twitter.

“Russia has achieved greater local success than before in the campaign, concentrating forces and firing on a relatively small area. This is forcing Russia to take risks elsewhere in the occupied territories.”

Russia says it has hit a shipyard in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv

Russia’s Defense Ministry announced yesterday that its forces had hit a shipyard facility in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv.

The Russian artillery hit a hangar at Mykolaiv ‘Ocean’ shipyards, destroying vehicles and other equipment, the ministry said.

Reuters was unable to confirm the report from independent sources.

Moscow says ready to hand over bodies of 152 Ukrainian fighters found in Azovstal

The Russian military has discovered the bodies of 152 Ukrainian fighters inside the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol and is ready to deliver them to Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry announced today.

During a search of the factory, where more than 2,000 Ukrainian fighters, mostly from the Azov Order, had been fortified for several weeks before surrendering to Russian forces in mid-May, “Russian soldiers discovered a refrigerated truck,” the ministry said. .

“Inside the refrigerator, whose cooling system was out of order, were stored 152 bodies of fighters and soldiers of the Ukrainian forces,” the ministry added, noting that “four mines” were also found under the bodies.

“The Russian side will make sure to hand over the bodies found inside the plant to the Ukrainian representatives,” it added, adding that Moscow had not received any request from Kiev for their recovery.

This information could not be verified by an independent source.

The last Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol, fortified in the huge Azovstal steel plant, surrendered to Russian forces between May 16 and 20, after three months of heavy fighting.

About 2,500 Ukrainian fighters are currently being held by the Russians, who intend to try them as war criminals.

New mass graves discovered in Mariupol – Maybe over 22,000 dead civilians

In Mariupol, the death toll could exceed 22,000 among civilians, said the mayor of the city Vadim Boichenko in his statements yesterday, which are included in a statement posted on the Telegram by the city council, as reported by the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform.

The announcement states that 25 new sections in the form of a moat appeared in the Starokrimski cemetery within a month. The bodies are stacked in several layers and then “covered” with slabs to look like individual burials.

In all, since mid-April, the occupiers have buried at least 16,000 Mariupol residents in mass graves in the villages of Stari Krim, Mangus and Vinogradnoye, the statement said.

In addition, about 5,000 civilians were buried by municipal services by mid-March. Thousands of dead remain under the rubble, in makeshift cemeteries and temporary cemeteries.

According to Ukrinform, journalists have recently located mass graves near the village of Mangus, the cemetery in the village of Vinogradnoye and the cemetery in the village of Stary Krim.

The satellite also located a fourth mass grave in the central cemetery of Merioupolis, the existence of which was announced by the local authorities. This tomb was located in early March.

Today, more than one hundred thousand inhabitants remain in occupied Mariupol. The Russian occupying forces have appointed the Russian collaborator Konstantin Ivashenko as mayor of the city and create the impression that “life in the city is starting again”.

Belarus: Military mobilization exercises to be held near Ukrainian border

Belarus will hold mobilization exercises in June and July in the Gomel region, the state-run BelTA news agency reported on Monday.

The said region is located on the border with Belarus and borders Ukraine to the south and areas of the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl region. To the east, it borders Russia.

From June 22nd to July 1st, scheduled exercises will be held with the participation of military commands and formations, as reported by the state news agency BelTA, citing Andrei Krivonosov, military commissar of the Gomel region.

“Military exercises of this kind are traditionally carried out to increase the combat capability and operational readiness of military administrations, but also to improve military knowledge, as well as the practical skills of military personnel,” BelTA reported. , citing Krivonosov.

From June 28th to July 16th, exercises will be held at the level of regional defense formations.

Belarus is a close ally of Russia and announced in March that its military was not taking part in what Moscow called a “special military operation” in Ukraine, but was a springboard for Russia to invade Ukrainian territory on the 24th. February.