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Ukrainian Forces Keep Up Desperate Resistance Near Syevyerodonetsk, Remain Defiant
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service June 18, 2022
Desperate Ukrainian forces continued to put up fierce resistance in and around Syevyerodonetsk, buoyed politically by vocal support by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the European Union ahead of a summit next week that could lead to EU candidacy status.
Syevyerodonetsk, the focus of Russia's offensive to capture full control of the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, remained under heavy artillery fire on June 18, as did the sister city of Lysychansk, just across the Severskiy Donets River.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on June 18 made a rare trip outside the capital, Kyiv, visiting the embattled southern city of Mykolaiv for the first time since the start of Russia's invasion in February.
"Our brave men and women, each one of them is working flat out," Zelenskiy said in a video from Mykolaiv. "We will definitely hold out! We will definitely win!"
Meanwhile, Ukraine's chief negotiator, David Arakhamia, told Voice of America without giving details that Kyiv plans to resume peace talks with Russia by the end of August after counterattack operations have been carried out and the country is in a better position to negotiate.
Johnson, who made a surprise visit to Kyiv on June 17, urged fellow Western leaders to avoid "Ukraine fatigue" as the conflict drags on nearly four months after Russia's unprovoked invasion.
"The Russians are grinding forward inch by inch, and it is vital for us to show what we know to be true, which is that Ukraine can win and will win," he told reporters in London.
"When Ukraine fatigue is setting in, it is very important to show that we are with them for the long haul and we are giving them the strategic resilience that they need," Johnson added.
The Ukrainian military said on June 18 there was continuous "fire from artillery and rocket-propelled grenade launchers at the positions of our troops and civilian infrastructure" in Lysychansk.
Serhiy Hayday, the military governor of Luhansk, the region where the twin cities of Syevyerodonetsk and Lysychansk are located, said late on June 18 that Russian offensives on towns and villages south of Syevyerodonetsk were pushed by Ukrainian forces, although the situation remains "difficult" in many areas.
"The Russians have thrown all their reserves in the direction of Syevyerodonetsk and Bakhmut," Hayday said in a posting online.
"They are trying to establish full control over the regional center and to cut the Lysychansk-Bakhmut highway. They're having no success. They are dying en masse."
Rodion Miroshnik, an official in what the separatists call the Luhansk People's Republic, said in an online posting that a big explosion had rocked the Syevyerodonetsk area and that a large orange-colored cloud was seen in the air.
Battlefield claims on both sides could not immediately be verified.
The British Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin on June 18 that in the past 48 hours, Russian forces likely renewed their push south of the city of Izyum, some 115 kilometers northwest of Syevyerodonetsk, aiming to envelop the city from the north.
Hayday said it was impossible to evacuate more than 500 civilians who are trapped inside the Azot chemical plant in Syevyerodonetsk.
He said around 10,000 civilians, out of a prewar population of 100,000, remain trapped in Syevyerodonetsk, with essential supplies running out.
The United Nations has put the number of civilians still trapped in the city at 12,000.
Russia earlier this week offered what it said was a humanitarian corridor for the evacuation of civilians toward Moscow-controlled territory and demanded that Ukrainian fighters holed up in the Azot plant surrender. Ukraine has ignored the Russian offer.
The British intelligence bulletin noted that Russia, both earlier in the Ukraine campaign and in Syria, has used unilaterally declared humanitarian corridors as a mechanism to manipulate the battle space and impose the forced transfer of populations.
Russia's proposed route, British intelligence said, would take civilians toward the town of Svatova, deeper inside Russian-occupied territory.
If trapped civilians refuse Moscow's offer of exiting via a corridor, Russian will likely claim justification in making less of a distinction between them and any Ukrainian military targets in the area, British intelligence concluded in its bulletin.
In Mykolaiv, Zelenskiy "inspected the building of the Mykolaiv regional state administration which was destroyed as a result of a missile strike by Russian forces," the president's office said in a statement.
Mykolaiv has been holding the defense of southern Ukraine, as it lies on the way to the key strategic Black Sea port of Odesa.
Zelenskiy's visit came a day after a Russian strike killed two people and injured 20 in Mykolaiv, which has been regularly targeted by Russian forces since the start of their invasion on February 24.
Zelenskiy also took part in a meeting with local officials in what looked like an underground basement, giving out awards for bravery.
Russian forces also launched missile strikes on Ukraine's largest oil refinery on July 18, according to the regional governor in the central Poltava region.
"Kremenchuk [oil refinery] is again under enemy strike. Between six and eight Russian missiles hit refineries and other infrastructure," Dmytro Lunin said in a Telegram message.
Ukraine said its forces sank a Russian naval tugboat with two Harpoon missiles in the Black Sea on June 17, the first time it has claimed to have struck a Russian vessel with Western-supplied anti-ship weapons.
"Later it became known that it sank," Odesa military governor Maksym Marchenko said in a video statement on his Telegram channel after initial reports that the Vasily Bech vessel had been hit.
The claim could not be independently confirmed. There was no comment from the Russian side.
Ukraine has repeatedly requested more advance heavy weaponry to help its outnumbered and outgunned forces stave off Russia's all-out assault.
British PM Johnson offered to launch a military training program for Ukrainian forces during his surprise meeting with Zelenskiy in Kyiv on June 17.
Ukraine has been losing thousands of its best soldiers in the grinding war in the Donbas in Ukraine's east. Zelenskiy said as many as 100 Ukrainian soldiers are dying a day.
With reporting by Reuters, BBC, AFP, and dpa
Copyright (c) 2022. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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