Ukraine falls back to as Russians advance in Donbas while Boris Johnson offers fresh support

Ukraine has admitted it may have to retreat from its last post in the Luhansk region as Russian forces continue their relentless march.

Putin’s forces – now into their fourth month of the invasion – have concentrated on the east of the country in recent weeks.

Ukrainian soldiers leaving Luhansk will be a blow to the country, due to its symbolic significance in the war.

This morning Boris Johnson offered fresh support to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky said they spoke on the phone about ‘strengthening defence support for Ukraine, intensifying work on security guarantees and supplying fuel’.

He added: ‘We must work together to prevent a food crisis and unblock Ukrainian ports.’

Putin wants both Luhansk and Donetsk regions in full and their capture was one of his earliest objectives in the deranged despot’s so-called ‘special military operation’.

Luhansk’s governor, Serhiy Gaidai, said Russian troops had entered Severodonetsk, the largest Donbas city still held by Ukraine, after trying to trap Ukrainian forces there for days, though adding that Russian forces would not be able to capture the Luhansk region ‘as analysts have predicted’.

‘We will have enough strength and resources to defend ourselves. However, it is possible that in order not to be surrounded we will have to retreat,’ Gaidai said on Telegram.

Gaidai said 90 per cent of buildings in Severodonetsk were damaged with 14 high-rises destroyed in the latest shelling.

Russia’s separatist proxies said they controlled Lyman, a railway hub west of Severodonetsk. Ukraine said Russia had captured most of Lyman but that its forces were blocking an advance to Sloviansk, to the southwest.

President Zelensky said Ukraine was protecting its land ‘as much as our current defence resources allow’. 

Ukraine’s military said it had repelled eight attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk on Friday, destroying tanks and armoured vehicles.

‘If the occupiers think that Lyman and Severodonetsk will be theirs, they are wrong. Donbas will be Ukrainian,’ Zelensky said in an address.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said on Saturday Ukrainian forces had repelled eight assaults in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the previous 24 hours. 

Russia’s attacks included artillery assaults in the Severodonetsk area ‘with no success’, it said.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said while Russian forces had begun direct assaults on built-up areas of Severodonetsk, they would likely struggle to take ground in the city itself.

‘Russian forces have performed poorly in operations in built-up urban terrain throughout the war,’ they said.

Russian troops advanced after piercing Ukrainian lines last week in the city of Popasna, south of Severodonetsk. Russian ground forces have captured several villages northwest of Popasna, Britain’s defence ministry said.  

Natalia Kovalenko, 52, who lives in Popasna, had left the cellar where she was sheltering in the wreckage of her flat when a shell hit the courtyard, killing two people and wounding eight.

She said: ‘We are tired of being so scared.’ 

Britain’s defence ministry said Lyman, which has been mostly captured by Russia, was likely seen as a ‘preliminary operation for the next stage of Russia’s Donbas offensive’.

The defence ministry added: ‘Lyman is strategically important because it is the site of a major railway junction, and also gives access to important rail and road bridges over the Siverskyy Donets River.

‘In the coming days, Russian units in the area are likely to prioritise forcing a crossing of the river.  

‘For now, Russia’s main effort likely remains 40km to the east, around the Severodonetsk pocket but a bridgehead near Lyman would give Russia an advantage in the potential next phase of the Donbas offensive, when it will likely seek to advance on key Ukrainian-held cities deeper in Donetsk Oblast, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

‘On May 26, head of the self-declared, Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, told Russian state-controlled media that a referendum would be held if Russia captured the entirety of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. 

‘If Russia did succeed in taking over these areas, it would highly likely be seen by the Kremlin as a substantive political achievement and be portrayed to the Russian people as justifying the invasion.

‘However, the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to conduct a well-organised defence of the sector, and continue to impose a high level of casualties on Russia.’ 

A video showed Russia today testing its new hypersonic Zircon – or Tsirkon – missile ahead of its imminent deployment.

The 6,670mph was fired from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate in the Barents Sea, and hit a target at a range of 625miles in the White Sea.

A statement from the Russian defence ministry said: ‘According to objective control data, the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile successfully hit a sea target located at a distance of about 1,000km.

‘The flight of the hypersonic missile corresponded to the specified parameters.’

Vladimir Putin has poured money into developing new nuclear-capable missiles which – he claims – are ‘unstoppable’ by Western air defences.

Deliveries of the Zircon are due within months and possibly weeks.

Russia’s eastern gains follow the withdrawal of its forces from approaches to the capital, Kyiv, and a Ukrainian counter-offensive that pushed its forces back from Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv.

Russian forces shelled parts of Kharkiv on Thursday for the first time in days killing nine people, authorities said. The Kremlin denies targeting civilians in what it calls its ‘special military operation’.

Ukraine’s General Staff said on Saturday while there was no new attack on the city, there were multiple Russian strikes on nearby communities and infrastructure.

In the south, where Moscow has seized a swath of territory since the February 24 invasion, including the port of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to impose permanent rule.

In the Kherson region in the south, Russian forces were fortifying defences and shelling Ukraine-controlled areas, the region’s Ukrainian governor, Hennadiy Laguta, told media.

He said the humanitarian situation was critical in some areas and people were finding it very difficult to leave.

Police said 31 people had been evacuated on Friday from the Luhansk region, including 13 children.

On the diplomatic front, European Union officials said a deal might be reached by Sunday to ban deliveries of Russian oil by sea, accounting for about 75 per cent of the bloc’s supply, but not by pipeline, a compromise to win over Hungary and clear the way for new sanctions.

Zelensky has accused the EU of dithering over a ban on Russian energy, saying the bloc was funding Russia’s war and delay ‘merely means more Ukrainians being killed’.

In a telephone call with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Putin stuck to his line that a global food crisis caused by the conflict can be resolved only if the West lifts sanctions.

Nehammer said Putin expressed readiness to discuss a prisoner swap with Ukraine but added: ‘If he is really ready to negotiate is a complex question.’

Both Russia and Ukraine are major grain exporters, and Russia’s blockade of ports has halted shipments, driving up global prices. Russia accuses Ukraine of mining the ports.

Russia justified its assault in part on ensuring Ukraine does not join the U.S.-led NATO military alliance. But the war has pushed Sweden and Finland, both neutral throughout the Cold War, to apply to join NATO in one of the most significant changes in European security in decades