Russia's bloody assaults on remaining communities in embattled Luhansk have reduced them to war-battered “dead cities,” the Ukrainian President said today.
Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed his troops are still defending much of the key town of Severodonetsk against a ferocious attack from Russian battalions.
The Kremlin is believed to be throwing increasing numbers of troops into the battle for Severodonetsk as Moscow courts banned all mention of death toll in the media.
If Severodonetsk falls into Russia ’s hands it will mean Moscow will have taken almost all of Luhansk, one of two regions that make up contested Donbas in the east.
Both sides are fighting bloody street-by-street battles with artillery shells raining down on scenes of carnage constantly and bodies lying in the streets.
It has long been suspected the Kremlin wants to reduce neighbouring Ukraine to a “frozen war,” occupied by a skeleton force and its main cities in ruins.
But today Zelensky vowed Ukraine will fight to recover all its territory occupied by Russian forces, focusing on Severodonetsk, one of the bloodiest battles so far.
He said: "We have already lost too many people to simply cede our territory.”
Zelensky vowed stalemate was "not an option" and added defiantly: "We have to achieve a full de-occupation of our entire territory."
And in reference to French President Emmanuel Macron recently suggesting it was important not to “humiliate” Moscow, he added: "We are not going to humiliate anyone, we are going to respond in kind."
Ukrainian officials had claimed that in Severodonestk their forces launched a surprise counter-attack last week, driving the Russians from a swath of the city centre.
On Tuesday the British MoD said Russia was still trying to cut off Severodonetsk by advancing from the north and south.
It said: "Russia will almost certainly need to achieve a breakthrough on at least one of these axes to translate tactical gains to operational level success and progress towards its political objective of controlling all of Donetsk Oblast.”
Zelensky added that Kyiv was gradually receiving "specific anti-ship systems", which will help break a Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports.
It has emerged Russia is gagging the media from revealing details of troop deaths in Ukraine as Moscow is thought to have lost 31,000 already.
Legal chiefs banned death toll mentions and Russian courts declared lists of slain soldiers a “state secret.”
The cover-up was revealed amid growing fears Russia’s soaring toll in Ukraine may erode support for the bloody invasion.
But support for the war - albeit based on false narratives such as Ukraine being run by “Nazis” spread for years by the Kremlin has increased in Russia.
According to the US thinktank the Atlantic Council, Russian pollsters estimate 77% of Russians support the war - an increase from 74% in April.
This is despite graveyards now hosting lanes of corpses and tombstones dubbed “alleyways of the dead.”
It is now feared dead conscripts on the sunk Moskva cruiser may never be identified and the father of one conscript has challenged the Kremlin.
Dmitry Shkrebets, 43, is under investigation on terror charges in the wake of his campaign for the truth about his son Yegor, 20, who may have been on the Black Sea Fleet flagship, which was hit by Ukrainian missiles.
