A senior official in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk Region on Thursday called on local residents to evacuate their homes immediately, or risk being caught in the path of an impending Russian Federation (RF) offensive, and potentially devastating occupation by RF troops. “There is no time to lose, you (Luhansk Region residents) should leave right now,” said Serhiy Haidai, head of Luhansk’s regional defense command, in a public statement.
“A time could come when we will not be able to save you.” Haidai said the city of Severodonetsk and areas around it were the most threatened, but, villages and towns elsewhere in the north and east of Luhansk Region could also become objectives in the upcoming RF attack which, he said, will be massive and likely on a wide front.
Ukraine’s Army General Staff (AGS) in a 06:00 Thursday sitrep said that the Kremlin is rearming and refitting its forces preparatory to a major effort to capture Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk Regions in their entirety. Estimates of when the offensive will come have ranged from a few days to a few weeks. Haidai said that in Luhansk Region currently RF forces are not only shelling the towns of Rubizhne, Popasna and Severodonetsk on a daily and sometimes hourly basis, but are now also launching probing attacks to feel out the defenses of Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF). He said that UAF lines are holding and inflicting casualties and vehicle losses on RF units, but, if a major attack develops people still living in those towns and villages will almost certainly see their homes become battlefields, and likely become unable to escape.
“They (RF artillery) are already shelling the rail line (west) from Kramatorsk. We are repairing it and trains are running, but that link could break at any time,” Haidai said. “We have buses and ambulances to use for evacuation by vehicle, but our (local government) resources are limited.” Thursday news and social media images from the usually-sleepy Severodonetsk station showed more than 1,000 travelers waiting to board trains to safety. “Do not wait to evacuate. The enemy is trying to cut off all possible ways of getting people out,” Haidai underlined in his statement.
Aside from attacking rail lines, Haidai said, RF artillery and mortars are systematically firing on water utilities and power lines, and listening in on public announcements and employing spies to learn of repairs by Ukrainian authorities, so that electricity and clean water supplies critical to civilians might again be targeted and demolished.
“We have many traitors, more than you think, “Haidai said. “Be careful who you talk to and what you say, and remember your neighbor might not be friendly.” Since the failure of an attempt to capture the capital Kyiv in the early days of the war, Moscow has switched to a campaign of targeting civilians, their homes and their businesses, in an apparent attempt to browbeat the Ukrainian government and populace into submission.
Ukraine has been issuing appeals for weeks to the international community for intervention to prevent wholesale RF attacks on Ukrainian civilians, but the RF bombing and shelling has continued. The Kremlin has been under severe international criticism since April 1 for mass deaths of Ukrainian civilians discovered in towns and villages to the north of Kyiv, following RF army retreat and UAF liberation. Ukrainian officials have alleged RF troops murdered and looted on orders from their officers during the near month-long RF army occupation of these towns and villages. Moscow claims Kyiv made it all up.
