Kiev has pledged to "
do everything
" to defend the Donbass, where the Russian army has intensified its offensive, pushing Ukrainian forces to consider a strategic withdrawal to certain front lines in this eastern region of the country in order to to avoid an encirclement.
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“
The situation in Donbass is very, very difficult
,” President Volodimyr Zelensky said in a video address on Friday.
“
We protect our land and do everything to strengthen
” the defense of this region, he assured.
The territorial defense of the self-proclaimed pro-Russian
separatist "
republic " of Donetsk (east) indicated on Telegram that it had "
taken complete control
" of the key locality of Lyman, with "
the support
" of the Russian army.
Severodonetsk “currently surrounded”
Neither the Russian nor the Ukrainian army immediately commented on this information, which AFP could not verify from an independent source.
But President Zelensky retorted: “
If the occupiers think that Lyman and Severodonetsk will be theirs, they are mistaken.
Donbass will be Ukrainian
”.
After the unsuccessful offensive on kyiv and Kharkiv (north-east) at the start of the war launched by Russia on February 24, Russian forces are concentrated in eastern Ukraine, with the stated objective of taking control total of the Donbass mining basin, partially controlled since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists supported by Moscow.
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A police official from the pro-Russian separatist republic of Lugansk, quoted by the Ria Novosti agency, said on Friday that "
the city of Severodonetsk is currently surrounded
", and that Ukrainian troops are trapped there.
False, retorted the governor of Lugansk, Serguiï Gaïdaï, even judging erroneous to say that the region will fall under Russian “
entire control of the enemy
” in “
one, two or three days
”.
"
Most likely they won't
" seize it, but "
perhaps, to avoid being surrounded there could be a withdrawal order given to our troops
", he however admitted.
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