Russia claimed victory in Ukraine’s Luhansk region in the east, which became a focus of its invasion after a failed campaign to take Kyiv.
The takeover became complete when Russian forces and separatists established “full control” over the city of Lysychansk and a number of nearby settlements, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
“On July 3, 2022, the Russian Minister of Defense, General of the Army Sergey Shoigu reported to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces Vladimir Putin on the liberation of the Lugansk People’s Republic,” the ministry said, according to Russia’s state-run news agency TASS. “The total area of the territories liberated over the past 24 hours reached 182 square km,” Russian officials added.
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A Ukrainian official informed the Wall Street Journal that defenders were retreating from Luhansk in order to avoid being surrounded. This lines up with a post by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, which said, “Ukrainian forces likely conducted a deliberate withdrawal from Lysychansk, resulting in the Russian seizure of the city on July 2.”
The area has been the site of “relentless artillery bombardment,” reported the New York Times.
Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February, and sought to blitz Ukraine and quickly take the capital of Kyiv. However, in the face of stiff resistance by Ukrainian forces, backed by the West, Moscow turned its focus to the eastern region of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of a “special military operation in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the heads of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republic for help,” TASS said in its report Sunday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously vowed not to cede any region in Ukraine to the Russians, stressing he doubts the Russian military would stop with the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have declared independence from Kyiv.
“Ukraine and the people of our states are absolutely clear: We don’t want anyone else’s territory, and we are not going to give up our own,” Zelensky said in an interview with CNN that aired in April. “I don’t trust the Russian military and Russian leadership. That is why we understand that the fact that we fought them off and they left, and they were running away from Kyiv, from the north, from Chernihiv, and from that direction — it doesn’t mean if they are able to capture Donbas, they won’t come further toward Kyiv.”
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Ukraine also appears to be going on the offensive. Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov, who is currently exiled, said “there were over 30 strikes on a single military base” in the southern city on Sunday, according to Reuters. Russia also retreated from Snake Island in the Black Sea, the site of a now-famous show of Ukrainian defiance early in the war.
More than 10,000 people have died in Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict, BBC News reported, citing data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. Among them are thousands of civilians. Millions of people have fled their homes.
The United States has offered more than $7 billion worth of assistance to Ukraine and remains committed to helping Ukraine defend itself from Russian forces, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Sunday. Kirby also said Putin has shown “no indication” that he is interested in negotiating talks.
