The Ukrainian military says its forces have withdrawn from the battle-scarred town of Siversk in the eastern Donetsk region after heavy fighting with Russian forces.
In a statement on Telegram on Tuesday, Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russian troops had a “significant advantage” in manpower and equipment and had exerted constant pressure on the defending Ukrainian troops by staging small-unit assaults in difficult weather conditions.
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Ukraine’s decision to withdraw its forces was made to “preserve the lives of our soldiers and the combat capability of the units”, the General Staff said.
Heavy losses were inflicted on Russian forces before the order to retreat was given, and Siversk remains “under the fire control of our troops”, and “enemy units are being blocked to prevent their further advance,” the General Staff added.
Ukraine’s DeepState military monitoring site reported late on Tuesday that Russian forces had occupied Siversk as well as Hrabovske, a village in Ukraine’s Sumy region close to the border with Russia.
Russian Lieutenant General Sergei Medvedev had told Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 11 that troops had taken Siversk, where fighting has been fierce in recent months, but Ukrainian officials denied the Russian reports at the time.
Ukraine’s military said at the time that Russian troops were “taking advantage of unfavourable weather conditions” to launch attacks, but were mostly being “destroyed on the approaches”.
The Kyiv Independent news site said that, despite Siversk’s modest size – it had a pre-war population of 10,000, and now, just a few hundred civilians remain – the town was key to the defence of northern Donetsk.
