Ukraine Reclaims Key Areas In Bold Counter Offensive

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Ukrainian forces have reportedly reclaimed portions of the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk from Russian troops. In recent years, Ukrainian authorities named Severodonetsk as the administrative capital of the country’s Luhansk region, which Putin’s forces are attempting to completely seize, as they’re trying to do with Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Together, the Luhansk and Donetsk regions comprise what’s known as the Donbas.

As of Sunday, it was about half the city apparently controlled by Ukraine’s forces. Per The Wall Street Journal, “close-quarters combat in Severodonetsk makes it harder for Russian troops to unleash artillery against Ukrainian forces.” The Donbas region has become a main focus of ground-level fighting in Ukraine between the country’s troops and Russian invaders, although elsewhere in Ukraine remains under threat as well — there was a strike in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, on Sunday. At least one individual was hospitalized after the Kyiv strike. As for Severodonetsk, it’s over a week ago when Russia first captured portions of the city, and Russian forces elsewhere in Ukraine have been moved into “defensive postures to concentrate all available forces on taking the city,” as the Journal summarized revelations from the Institute for the Study of War.

In other words, it sounds like portions of the Russian military have recently shifted the focus of offensives against Ukraine’s defenders to Severodonetsk, a city that before the war had a population of more than 100,000 — and now, Ukrainians are apparently pushing Russian troops there back at a substantial pace. “Over the last 24 hours, Ukrainian forces have counterattacked in the contested city of Sieverodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, likely blunting the operational momentum Russian forces previously gained through concentrating combat units and firepower,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in a Sunday update about the situation there.

“Talked to a foreign fighter currently deployed to Severodonetsk,” journalist Neil Hauer said in a Sunday post. “He’s confident that Ukrainian forces there will hold, but his unit is rotating out after heavy losses – 3 killed, 6 wounded from his unit of 24 in just 24 hours of fighting.” Read more at this link.

Elsewhere, a monastery in the Ukrainian city of Svyatohirsk was recently hit by Russian forces — hundreds of Ukrainians were sheltering there, adding another instance to the list of Russian strikes on locations where large numbers of civilians were gathered in Ukraine amid relentless violence from Russian troops. The city is in the Donetsk region. What Reuters identified as a church on the grounds was destroyed; at least three individuals were killed there. “Russian artillery struck the Svyatohirsk Lavra in the Donetsk region again today,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. “Destroyed All Saints Monastery. It was consecrated in 1912. It was first destroyed during the Soviet era. Later it was rebuilt to be burned by the Russian army.” Across Ukraine, over 100 churches have apparently been destroyed since Russia began its current assault on the country in February. Although at this point it’s obvious to anyone not immersed in Putin’s propaganda, Russian troops have spent months hitting civilian targets.