Thousands of civilians flee the Donbass region for fear of Russian invasion. The next big battle is expected to control Slovyansk.
Izjumin The Russian ground forces that seized the city on the border between Kharkov and Donetsk on Wednesday tried to move south from Izjum, the Ukrainian headquarters said in a progress report. According to the General Staff, Russia’s target is the small town of Barvinkova, less than 50 kilometers south of Izjum.
The destination is important as the railway to the west of Kramatorsk passes through Barvinkova. If Russia succeeds in its attempt, the maintenance of the Ukrainian forces defending the former Minsk ceasefire line will be really difficult.
In the process the route west of the civilians fleeing Kramatorsk would be cut off. Only on Tuesday did Kramatorsk leave Kyiv Independent According to the newspaper, more than 8,000 civilians by rail are afraid of a major Russian attack. The terminals of passenger trains were in Zaporizhia and Lviv in western Ukraine.
A bullet train operated between Kramatorsk and Kiev for several years before the Russian invasion.
Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereštšuk for its part, on Wednesday, reported the opening of 11 evacuation corridors from villages in eastern and southern Ukraine that have been left behind by fighting. There is no public transport available on these routes but the parties have agreed to allow car traffic. Contracts for ceasefires have held varying degrees in the past. This was reported by the news agency Ukrinform.
If Russia will take over Barvinkova, the next attack is expected from Izjum to Sloviansk, they estimate BBC:n experts interviewed. The cities are connected by the highway between Kharkov and Rostov, Russia, which has already been fought for.
Kramatorsk and Slovjansk form a twin city with almost 300,000 inhabitants. Kramatorsk is the regional headquarters city of Ukraine.
Sloviansk, meanwhile, rose to world news in the spring of 2014 after a Russian intelligence officer Igor Girkinin a group of a few dozen Russian soldiers led by Crimea arrived in this crossroads from the Crimea after its occupation. Girkin’s troops occupied the center, captured the mayor, and began recruiting local young men into their ranks.
Girkin withdrew to a total of about a thousand fighters in the separatist-dominated Donetsk after the start of Ukraine’s counterattack in the summer of 2014. Girkin briefly became Minister of Defense of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” until he quarreled with separatist commanders and returned home to Moscow.
Slovianski played an important role in Russian propaganda and false news eight years ago, so taking over the city in Russia would certainly be considered a significant victory.
Ukraine according to the armed forces, fighting took place on wednesday in the small town of Solodke, west of the Donetsk region, on Wednesday. However, the forces fighting in Russia’s Solodka have probably not pushed west from the direction of Donetsk, but these forces have come to Ukraine from Crimea and advanced first to the north and then to the east.
Ukraine has previously reported fighting in Huljaipole, west of Solodke in the Zaporizhia region.
If Russian troops advancing from the south get in touch with Russian troops attacking south of Izjum, a significant portion of Ukrainian fighters will be left in the big ceasefire on the former ceasefire line and its west side. However, achieving this goal would take a long time at Russia’s current pace of progress.
Ukraine According to the General Staff, Russian troops north of Kiev had virtually withdrawn to Belarus on Wednesday. According to the General Staff, Russian troops had withdrawn from the direction of Kharkov to the Belgorod region in Russia. So far, these forces are being maintained and replenished, and no significant transfers to the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine have been reported.
Russia has previously announced that it will shift the focus of the attack east to the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, which it says it intends to take over completely. Before the war, about a third of these provinces were held by Russia and its separatists.
After a month of war, Russia claimed to control 90 percent of the Luhansk region and just over half of the Donetsk region. There may be some exaggeration here, as Ukraine has consistently reported fighting in villages and towns on or near the former Minsk ceasefire line.