The explosions’ origin was not immediately known, however, Russia eventually claimed responsibility for hitting nearby army command posts.
Kyiv claims that Moscow has increased missile attacks on cities in the country’s east that are far from the main battlegrounds and that it intentionally targeted civilian targets. In the meantime, Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines in the east report heavy artillery barrages that have devastated civilian neighbourhoods. Russia claims to have hit military installations but denies firing at civilians. The head of the Russian military’s general staff reviewed Russian troops taking part in what Moscow refers to as a “special military operation,” according to the Russian defence ministry.
It was unclear, however, whether he was in Ukraine. The inspection comes in the wake of cautious but steady gains made by Russian forces in east Ukraine with the aid of persistent shelling, a priority for Moscow after it reduced its larger war objectives of overthrowing the government in response to tough Ukrainian opposition. “It’s clear they’re attempting to make us feel hopeless. Perhaps some people are impacted by that, but for us, it simply fuels our rage and tenacity,” a Ukrainian soldier who had just returned from Lysychansk, the country’s final stronghold in the region of Luhansk, remarked. In the industrialised eastern Donbas area, where Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting Kyiv since Russia’s initial military incursion in Ukraine in 2014, Russia is attempting to drive Ukrainian soldiers out of the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk.
According to a source close to the Russia-backed forces in Luhansk, who was quoted by the Russian news agency TASS, the final Ukrainian soldiers in Lysychansk were coming under heavy fire. If they do not give up, they will soon be defeated, the insider warned. After some of the worst combat of the four-month-old conflict, which reduced entire districts to ruins, Russian forces captured Sievierodonetsk, a significant city in the Luhansk region, this month. Now, similar shelling is being aimed at other settlements.
