Its military leaders are increasingly confronting the question of whether to withdraw from frontline cities to preserve soldiers’ lives, even if it means a more brutal fight to regain them.
As Ukraine fights to hold defensive positions in the Donbas region in the face of an unrelenting Russian bombardment, its military planners are increasingly confronting the difficult question of whether to withdraw from frontline cities to preserve soldiers’ lives, even if it means a more brutal fight to regain the territory.
President Volodymyr Zelensky offered a window into the dilemma facing Ukraine in the eastern cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, describing them in remarks to journalists on Monday as “dead cities” ravaged by Russian attacks and nearly empty of civilians. If Ukrainian forces do not withdraw, they risk being encircled and besieged, as fighters were in Mariupol, where more than 2,000 eventually had to surrender to Russian custody.
But a retreat from Sievierodonetsk, which Russia has surrounded from three sides, and where Russia and Ukraine have waged fierce street battles for days, would give Moscow control of the entire Luhansk region, which is part of Donbas, and make future attempts to retake the city even more costly, Mr. Zelensky added.
Mr. Zelensky’s stature as a wartime leader is built in part on his vow that Ukraine will fight to regain all of its territory, even the lands in Donbas and Crimea seized by Russia and Moscow-allied separatists beginning in 2014. On Monday, he said that if Russia succeeded in its objective of gaining control of the entire industrial Donbas region, it would present an existential challenge, giving Russia territory from which it can launch “constant missile strikes on the center of Ukraine.”
But he promised that the military would not let that happen, telling the nation later in his overnight address: “The Ukrainian Donbas stands. It stands firmly.”
One sign of hope for the still vastly outgunned Ukrainian military is the arrival of some powerful Western weapons systems that the United States and its allies hope will help dent Russia’s advantage in firepower. As Ukraine races to train its soldiers on the more sophisticated new weapons, they may already be having an effect in the Black Sea, where the Ukrainian Navy said on Monday that Russian warships had pulled back more than 70 miles from the Ukrainian coast, a development that it attributed to the arrival of Harpoon anti-ship missile systems from Denmark.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/07/world/russia-ukraine-war-news?auth=login-facebook
As Ukraine fights to hold defensive positions in the Donbas region in the face of an unrelenting Russian bombardment, its military planners are increasingly confronting the difficult question of whether to withdraw from frontline cities to preserve soldiers’ lives, even if it means a more brutal fight to regain the territory.
President Volodymyr Zelensky offered a window into the dilemma facing Ukraine in the eastern cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, describing them in remarks to journalists on Monday as “dead cities” ravaged by Russian attacks and nearly empty of civilians. If Ukrainian forces do not withdraw, they risk being encircled and besieged, as fighters were in Mariupol, where more than 2,000 eventually had to surrender to Russian custody.
But a retreat from Sievierodonetsk, which Russia has surrounded from three sides, and where Russia and Ukraine have waged fierce street battles for days, would give Moscow control of the entire Luhansk region, which is part of Donbas, and make future attempts to retake the city even more costly, Mr. Zelensky added.
Mr. Zelensky’s stature as a wartime leader is built in part on his vow that Ukraine will fight to regain all of its territory, even the lands in Donbas and Crimea seized by Russia and Moscow-allied separatists beginning in 2014. On Monday, he said that if Russia succeeded in its objective of gaining control of the entire industrial Donbas region, it would present an existential challenge, giving Russia territory from which it can launch “constant missile strikes on the center of Ukraine.”
But he promised that the military would not let that happen, telling the nation later in his overnight address: “The Ukrainian Donbas stands. It stands firmly.”
One sign of hope for the still vastly outgunned Ukrainian military is the arrival of some powerful Western weapons systems that the United States and its allies hope will help dent Russia’s advantage in firepower. As Ukraine races to train its soldiers on the more sophisticated new weapons, they may already be having an effect in the Black Sea, where the Ukrainian Navy said on Monday that Russian warships had pulled back more than 70 miles from the Ukrainian coast, a development that it attributed to the arrival of Harpoon anti-ship missile systems from Denmark.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/07/world/russia-ukraine-war-news?auth=login-facebook