Kremlin Forces Claim Street Fighting in Lysychansk, no let up to RF Bombardment of Cities

Kremlin state-controlled news agencies on Wednesday, June 29 claimed their forces had broken into the Donbas city of Lysychansk, as Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) sources reported no letting up of Russian bombardment of civilian homes and businesses.

The pro-Russia military information platform Readovka said in a June 29 situation update that “with bated breath we expect the imminent liberation of Lysychansk.”

According to Readovka, Russian Federation (RF) forces crossed the Siviersky Donets River and captured a bridgehead on the west bank near the village of Privolye, from which RF assault teams were advancing into Lysychansk. Russian troops were expanding the bridgehead and had captured one third of the city, including the Lysychansk oil refinery, in fierce street fighting, the Moscow-supporting platform said.

A statement on the morning of June 29 from Ukraine’s Army General Staff (AGS) said UAF units had engaged RF forces in the Lysychansk sector, and that a southern RF ground forces push was developing in the Bakhmut sector. The Kremlin high command in the last 24 hours committed three battalion tactical groups to the sector, but UAF units were holding their positions, the situation estimate said.

Artillery fire exchanges took place at multiple locations across the 2,000+ kilometer fighting front, without substantial ground movement, both RF and UAF sources said.

A statement from Russia’s Defense Ministry on June 29 said RF forces would continue to bombard “UAF defensive sites” in sectors across the front, including the Chernihiv, Siviersk, Kharkiv, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Mykolaiv sectors. The official declaration, aired on major RF state-controlled media, came two days after a deadly cruise missile strike against a shopping center in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk. At least 20 people died and more than 60 were injured in the blast.

RF spokesmen have asserted the missile actually hit a military facility – a claim directly contradicted by eyewitnesses, social media images, and reports from the scene by Ukrainian and international media.

Military analyst Oleh Zhdanov in comments to the UNIAN news agency said that RF forces are nearing exhaustion and will be unable to conduct major offensives for several weeks at least, and currently are only capable of limited local attacks, artillery bombardments, and air and missile strikes against civilian targets.

Zhdanov said: “The occupiers are now mostly on the defensive and do not understand what to do next… today they are really starting to run out of steam, they do not have enough reserves to accumulate forces and means to continue the offensive.”

In the northern city of Kharkiv, city officials reported on the morning of June 29 RF howitzers and rocket artillery struck homes and businesses in a wave of morning strikes, hospitalizing five. RF shelling and air strikes against villages to the north of Kharkiv killed two civilians and injured two more, said Oleh Synehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional defense administration, in a statement.

According to a morning statement on June 29 from the Zaporizhzhia regional defense command, over the past 24 hours RF artillery units shelled civilian infrastructure in the areas of the towns of Hulyaipole and Orykhiv, where at least 20 civilian structures were destroyed, the statement said.