Following several weeks of intense combat, the eastern Ukrainian province of Luhansk was “liberated” on Monday, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although the total fatalities are not yet known, a significant percentage of the area’s infrastructure, including residential buildings, has been destroyed.
Following Sunday’s intense shelling of the province, local authorities claim that Russian forces are now concentrating on taking more areas of the nearby Donetsk region of the Donbas.
The governor of the Donetsk province, Pavlo Kyrylenko, described a “tough Sunday in the Donetsk region [with] missile strikes and shelling throughout the territory” along with numerous civilian casualties.
Serhiy Haidai, the regional governor of Luhansk, anticipates that Russian forces will focus their assaults on Sloviansk, the first city in Donetsk to be taken by Russian-backed forces in 2014. Sloviansk had a pre-war population of about 100,000. Three months later, Ukrainian forces retook it.
Additionally, Bakhmut was mentioned by Haidai as a significant Russian target. Fighting between Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces has occasionally occurred in Luhansk and Donetsk, also known as the Donbas, for many years. Capturing the Donbas has been dubbed an “unconditional priority” by Moscow.
The Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, which is home to two secessionists, pro-Russian “republics,” has been described by Russia as its primary battlefield.
“We’ll be back”
According to Ukrainian soldiers guarding this area in the east, Russian weaponry is superior to theirs. Over the past few weeks, Russia has significantly surpassed Ukraine in the Donbas as Ukraine gradually gave up important cities and villages.
Nevertheless, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sworn that his nation will return to its exiled territory.
Zelenskyy stated in his nightly video message on Sunday, “There can be only one thing if the commanders of our army withdraw men from particular areas of the front where the enemy has the biggest advantage in fire power.” This statement also applies to Lysychansk.
“That we will come back thanks to our strategy and the increased availability of sophisticated weapons. Zelenskyy claimed that Russia had the capability to destroy “city after city in Ukraine” with its array of rocket launchers and that “much of their weaponry has been concentrated in Donbas.”
According to the president, protecting our military’s and citizens’ lives plays an equally vital role in the choice to put people’s lives before land. People must be safeguarded above everything else, and we will rebuild the walls and retake the territory.
“Marshall Plan”
A “Marshall Plan” for restoring Ukraine was discussed at a meeting of international leaders from the public and business sectors and NGOs on Monday in Switzerland.
Denys Shmyhal, the country’s prime minister, told a group of world leaders assembled in Switzerland for the Ukraine Recovery Conference that the troubled nation will require a staggering $750 billion to recover from Russia’s invasion.
Shmyhal added that the infrastructure of Ukraine has already sustained damage from Russia’s invasion of more than $100 billion. It has been five months since the conflict began; the longer it lasts, the more likely it is that this number will increase.