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LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine – Russian forces on Sunday attacked an important Ukrainian defense position near two strategically important cities in the east, Ukrainian military officials said, bringing them one step closer to encircling thousands of Ukrainian troops.
Ukrainian forces rushed reinforcements to frontline positions around Toshkivka, a small town southeast of the Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk metropolitan areas. The Russians “had success” but were eventually kept away, a Ukrainian official said, but the fight highlighted Ukraine’s faltering defense of two of the last cities in Luhansk province in the Donbas region that are not yet under Russian control.
If Moscow’s forces succeed in cutting off Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, they could strand thousands of Ukrainian warriors defending the cities, deliver a hard-won military victory to Moscow and move their forces closer to President Vladimir V. Putin’s goal of taking all of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas. area.
Ukrainian tanks and several Grad rocket systems were seen heading towards Toshkivka and other parts of the front line on Sunday afternoon, smoke billowing from their chassis and treads swirling along country roads, probably in an attempt to push back Russian forces there.
A crew member smiled and nodded when asked if his tank was on its way to the Ukrainian defense in that area.
When Russian troops have moved to surround both cities in the middle of weeks of street fighting and artillery duels, Ukrainian forces have fallen back and now hold only a small part of Sievierodonetsk. It includes a chemical plant where hundreds of civilians are believed to be sheltered and which has been subjected to a withering Russian bombing in recent days, Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk, said on Sunday.
The fighting continues elsewhere in the region. In the southwest, It said Ukrainian military officials Sunday that their troops had successfully repulsed an offensive on the eastern outskirts of Berestove. The General Staff of the Ukrainian military added that Russia was planning another attack in Sloviansk, about 500 km directly west of Sievierodonetsk.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately comment on Toshkivka, but said earlier on Sunday that its forces had captured Metolkine, a city just east of Sievierodonetsk. The Russian state news agency Tass said many Ukrainian fighters had capitulated there, although it was not possible to independently verify the allegations.
Toshkivka has served as an important part of a defensive wall in what has been called the Sievierodonetsk pocket. Located in the Donbas region – an area of rolling plains, fields and coal mining towns, where Moscow has committed most of its military power in recent months – the pocket is about three quarters surrounded by Russian forces. It has left only a narrow gap in the west where Ukrainian troops come and go using village roads that are often the subject of Russian artillery fire.
And Russian troops have crept forward to close the gap.
If Ukrainian forces can not strengthen the front line in Toshkivka, it means that Russian forces will have tightened the noose from the south, reducing the area for Ukrainian troops to maneuver in their pockets. It would also allow Russian forces to threaten the few remaining Ukrainian supply routes to Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this month that the future of large parts of eastern Ukraine would be decided in the fight for these two cities.
Ukraine’s decision to persevere in the street fighting in Sievierodonetsk was a gamble from the beginning. Its strategy has been to fight close by in the city, where Russia cannot take advantage of its enormous artillery advantages.
But the soldiers in the city, and those who support them in the neighboring town of Lysychansk on the west bank of Siversky Donet, have run the risk of being surrounded on a daily basis.
Russian artillery lines have hit roads, bridges and Ukrainian positions with what Ukrainian troops estimate are thousands of grenades every day.
No matter how risky, Ukraine’s strategy has successfully tied up Russian forces and caused casualties, said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister, in an interview on Sunday.
“Right now, the main goal is to use the opportunity we have to completely exhaust the Russians in the Donbas,” he said.
In addition, he added, it is better to fight now than to retreat and fight later in another place further west.
“If we were to move, they would move,” Zagorodnyuk said. “We would have to meet them somewhere. It is not as if Putin just wanted Sievierodonetsk. They will continue until they are stopped.”