The small town of Popasna in the Luhansk region, which until recently was heavily contested, has now been “cleansed” of “Ukrainian nationalists”, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Tuesday. Russia has repeatedly said that Luhansk should be completely wrested from Ukrainian control.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Hajdaj, on the other hand, described these statements as “fantasy”. Ukrainian soldiers should have retreated from Popasna, but the Russians did not break through the defenses, he wrote.
According to Hajdaj, there were 22 attacks in the Luhansk region in the last 24 hours as of Tuesday morning. Russian armed forces had already bombed the region en masse on Monday. Sirens can be heard early in several Ukrainian regions warning of air strikes, including in Lukansk, Kharkiv and Dnipro.
Journalists from the AFP news agency saw several trucks with soldiers and heavy equipment pulling out of the city of Severodonetsk, one of eastern Ukraine’s last strongholds. This could indicate a withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from parts of the front line.
On Tuesday night, Russia attacked more than 400 targets with rockets and artillery in different parts of Ukraine, Konashenkov said. Five warehouses with military equipment were destroyed in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region. Up to 380 Ukrainian fighters were killed. None of this information has been independently verifiable.
In Odessa, in the south of the country, firefighters are now fighting fires caused by several rocket attacks. Several people are said to have died in the attacks on Monday and Tuesday night.
By Monday night, the Russian Air Force had already fired several Kinzhal-type hypersonic missiles at Odessa. “Tourist objects” were hit and at least five buildings were destroyed, Ukrajinska Pravda reported.
Meanwhile, there is a lack of clarity about allegedly around 100 civilians in the besieged Azov-Stahl industrial complex in Mariupol. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereschtschuk rejected corresponding statements from two local officials. “That’s not true,” she said. The chief of the Azov regiment “officially declared” to Ukrainian government officials and a UN representative that “there are no more civilians, women, children or the elderly in the Azov steel”.
However, there are still more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers on the factory premises. “Hundreds are injured,” Vereshchuk said. Some of the soldiers were “severely injured” and had to be “urgently” removed from the steelworks. “The situation is getting worse every day.”