Russia intensifies its bombing in eastern Ukraine and moves closer to securing Donbass

The Russian Army continued its bomb attacks in eastern Ukraine on Monday and advanced its occupation plan for the entire Donbas region encouraged by the conquest of the strategic city of Lysychansk, while an international conference in Switzerland will begin to draw this Monday. a roadmap for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces announced on Sunday night its withdrawal from Lysychansk, the scene of fierce fighting in recent weeks, recognizing the “superiority” of Russian troops in this region of the Lugansk province (east).

After the fall of Lysychansk, the centerpiece of the plan to conquer this industrial basin, mostly Russian-speaking and controlled in part by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, the Russian Army now seems to be concentrating its efforts on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, two important cities located further west, which has been hit non-stop since Sunday.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, tried on Sunday night in his daily message to relativize the invading military success, highlighting the compatriot resistance in the Kharkiv region (northeast) or Kherson (south), where he affirmed that “progress” has been made.

“The day will come when we will say the same thing about Donbas,” he said, quoted by the AFP news agency.

In Sloviansk, a city of around 100,000 before the war, six people were killed, including a nine-year-old girl, in a Russian bombing. “She was called Eve. She would have been ten years old in August,” Zelenskyy said in his speech.

The Ukrainian authorities asked the population to leave the area.

In Siversk, about 20 kilometers west of Lysychansk, the Ukrainian troops seem to want to have a defense line between this city and Bakhmut to protect Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which have a high symbolic value.

“The enemy has intensified its bombardment of our positions in the direction of Bakhmut,” the Ukrainian Army General Staff confirmed this morning in its first bulletin.

At the same time, while the outcome of the war remains uncertain, the Lugano Conference, scheduled long before Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February, will try between today and tomorrow to draw the lines of the future reconstruction of the country.

The Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denis Schmigal, and the President of the Parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, arrived in Lugano on Sunday, and are scheduled to meet with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to lay the foundations for the “Marshall Plan” to Ukraine, despite the fact that the end of the war is not in sight and the figures to rebuild the country range from tens to hundreds of billions of dollars.

Robert Mardini, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, estimated on the Swiss network RTS that, although the real reconstruction will have to wait until the fighting ends, it is vital to give “a positive perspective to civilians.”

British Foreign Minister Liz Truss will present a major support plan in Lugano on Monday to help Ukraine in the long term and participate in the reconstruction of the country as soon as the war with Russia is over.

“The recovery of Ukraine after Russian aggression will symbolize the power of democracy over autocracy. It will show (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that his attempts to destroy Ukraine only resulted in a stronger, more prosperous, and more united nation, “said the head of British diplomacy.

For its part, the International Olympic Committee will triple its direct financial aid to Ukrainian athletes so that they can “raise their flag high” at the 2024 Paris Games and the 2026 Winter Games, IOC President Thomas Thomas announced on Sunday. Bach.

Visiting Kyiv, Bach, speaking alongside Zelenskyy, also said that “the time has not come” to change the position of the IOC, which has recommended excluding Russian and Belarusian athletes from all international sporting events.