Michael Clark, a visiting professor at King’s College London says that while Russia’s capture of Lysychansk is a win for Moscow, it will continue to face significant pushback from the Ukrainians.
“This is a victory for Russia, if they haven’t taken Lysychansk I’m pretty sure they will … the Ukrainians have got a strong position in Lysychansk, but the Russians have ran behind them for the first time in this war under the influence of their new general … who’s only been in post for about two weeks. They’re behaving like a more modern army. So this is a victory for the Russians in taking the whole of Luhansk”.
“But if you look at their ambitions, they were much greater, even in the Donbas … They are taking a very small bite which gives them Luhansk. But they have not yet got Donetsk which is the bigger oblast. They have some of it, but not all of it. They will have to take Sloviansk and Kramatorsk,” he told Al Jazeera.
AJ