Russian Federation (RF) forces intensified attacks in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, capturing ground, threatening a critical Ukrainian supply line and creating “the worst situation in eight years of war,” a regional official said on Wednesday.
Serhiy Haidai, head of the Luhansk regional defense command, in a May 25 Telegram statement said devastating RF bombardments were battering through Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) defenses in the Severodonetsk and Popasna sectors, and flattening towns and villages.
“It’s only getting worse. What the Russians are doing is hard to describe with words. The orcs are destroying our cities and demolishing everything they can. Severodonetsk is barely alive. They’ve dropped bombs on the center of the city. The Russians are attacking in Luhansk region from all directions, all at once,” Haidai said.
Haidai and independent Ukrainian news platforms said RF ground assaults appeared generally to be aimed at cutting a key road between the front line town Severodonetsk, and UAF supply bases in Bakhmut to the south-west.
According to independent Ukrainian news platform reports, RF artillery is able to shell the 50 kilometer-long Severodonetsk-Bakmut road along much of its length, and RF infantry have set up ambushes at some locations.
An analysis by the pro-Kremlin Readovka news platform said: “The road…is not yet cut, but to the north from (the town of) Soledar, the road is already under RF artillery fire, which will without question have an effect on the process of supplying UAF troop groupings in Severodonetsk.”
A May 25 statement by Ukraine’s Army General Staff (AGS) said UAF forces in the vicinity were holding their ground and that, although the situation is difficult, supply convoys are getting through.
In the Popasna sector, to the south of Severodonetsk, UAF forces outflanked by RF units were forced to retreat from the town of Svitlodarsk, less that 20 kilometers from the Bakhmut logistics hub, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional defense command, in a YouTube statement.
He said the situation was “serious but stable” and claimed the Svitlodarsk withdrawal was planned and tactically necessary, and that further UAF resistance would be from prepared fortifications built previously just to the east, as a second line of defense.
UAF units repelled RF attempts to capture the villages Kamyshevakha, Yakolevka and Troitske after heavy fighting, the AGS statement said. RF artillery bombardments or air strikes also hit the towns Avdievka, Piski, Marynka, Orekhiv and Marynka, but there were no ground attacks at those localities, the statement said.
A May 24 analysis by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that RF forces are attempting to cut off UAF troops in Donbas by cutting their supply with a pincer attack, with a northern prong of the offensive pushing through the town Severodonetsk, a southern prong moving north from Svitlodarsk, and the objective of capturing Bakhmut to complete the encirclement.
