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Why Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine is key to Russia’s war
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Russia is seeking to encircle Severodonetsk, which had a prewar population of about 100,000, now that a protracted battle for the port city of Mariupol has ended. Russia is attempting to gain control of the Donbas region, which includes Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russian forces are “throwing everything that they have at it,” said Matthew Schmidt, associate professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven.
After failing in other major efforts, he said, “they’re down to winning these tactical battles.”
He said Moscow has struggled with combat effectiveness, taking enormous losses of officers and stitching together “Frankenstein” groups made up of troops from different units. Many are exhausted.
Russian forces “need a win,” Schmidt said. Because they lack officers capable of leading effective offensives against Ukraine, they are trying to get such a victory in Severodonetsk by overwhelming the Ukrainians with firepower. Schmidt said the Russians are “bludgeoning their way through” in a way that could have dire consequences for civilians, as in Mariupol.
“They’re just pounding Ukrainians with artillery,” Schmidt said.
Russian troops are working on “erasing Severodonetsk from the face of the earth,” including by moving down the city’s streets and firing on buildings, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Haidai said this weekend. The Washington Post could not independently verify the claims.
“Every day they are trying to break the line of defense,” Haidai said in a Ukrainian-media interview that he posted to his Telegram channel Sunday. “Round-the-clock there is shelling, and unfortunately the Russian army chose the scorched earth tactic against the city of Severodonetsk: They are simply systematically destroying the city. Everywhere is being shelled constantly.”
Lyudmila Denisova, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, said the city is becoming “a new Mariupol.”
Russian troops destroyed a bridge into Severodonetsk on Saturday, making it harder to evacuate people and bring in supplies. Haidai, said Sunday that “if they destroy one more bridge, then the city will be fully cut off, unfortunately.”
He said about 10,000 people remain in Severodonetsk, about one-tenth of its prewar population, and that most “are almost constantly in bomb shelters.”
For Moscow’s forces, he said, the stakes are high. A loss would be “devastating to their morale and strategic position.”
Even a win could come with costly troop casualties and equipment losses. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, could then fall back to a safe, offensive position from which they could keep the pressure on Russia, Schmidt said.
A journalist from Channel 24 asked Haidai whether Russian troops would “calm down if their attack on Severodonetsk succeeds.”
“No, of course not,” Haidai said Sunday. “The Russian army only calms down where it gets ‘calmed down’ — meaning they will stop where they get stopped.”
Zina Posen contributed to this report.