Key To Ukraine's Success Resisting Russian Attack On Sievierodonetsk: Avoid Artillery, Provoke Street Battles

President Zelensky visits his troops on the front line near the city of Sievierodonetsk. (Source: President.gov.ua)

JAKARTA - The Ukrainian military claims to have succeeded in restraining the advance of Russian troops by inviting them to fight in the streets, but hopes for more artillery shipments to keep up with Russia's firepower.

In the south, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said it had seized new territory in a counterattack in Kherson province, targeting the largest territory Russia has seized since its invasion in February.

The battle amidst the ruins of Sievierodonetsk, a small industrial city, has been one of the bloodiest wars, with Russia concentrating its invasion forces there. Both sides say they have inflicted heavy casualties.

Sievierodonetsk and its sister city Lysychansk on the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets river, are the last part of Ukrainian-held Luhansk Province, with Moscow determined to seize it as one of its main war objectives.

Russian troops are focusing all their strength in the area, Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

"They don't spare their people, they just send people like cannon fodder. They shoot at our military day and night," he was quoted as saying June 10.

In an update from Sievierodonetsk, the commander of the Ukrainian Svoboda National Guard Battalion, Petro Kusyk, said Ukraine was pulling Russia into street fighting, in order to neutralize Russia's artillery advantage.

"Yesterday it worked for us, we launched a counterattack and in some areas we managed to push them back a block or two. In others they pushed us back, but only by a building or two," he said in a televised interview.

"Yesterday the invaders suffered serious losses, if every day is like yesterday, this will all end soon," he was sure.

But he said his troops were suffering from a "catastrophic" shortage of counter-battery artillery to counter Russian weapons, saying acquiring such weapons would change the battlefield.

"Even without this system, we defended well. There was an order to defend our position and we held it. It's hard to believe what surgeons do without proper equipment to save soldiers' lives," Kusyk said.

Meanwhile, Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said on Thursday some 10,000 civilians were still trapped inside the city, about a tenth of the pre-war population.

Outside Sievierodonetsk, Russia pushed from the north and south, trying to trap Ukrainian troops in the Donbas region consisting of Lugansk and Donetsk, blowing up Ukrainian-held towns in their path with artillery.

As for Soledar, a salt mining town near Bakhmut close to the front line, buildings have been blown up into craters. The remaining residents, mostly elderly, took refuge in the overcrowded basement.

And in the south, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said on Thursday its forces had won back some territory in a counter-offensive in Kherson.

He did not provide details on the location of the attack, but said Russian troops had "suffered losses in manpower and equipment", and planted mines and erected barricades as they were pushed back.

Ukraine reported a retaliatory strike in Kherson last week, claiming it had seized a bridge on the southern bank of the Inhulets river that forms the provincial boundary, a statement backed this week by Britain's defense ministry. The situation there could not be independently confirmed.

To note, thousands of people have died and millions have fled since Moscow launched a special military operation, to disarm and denazify Ukraine on February 24. Meanwhile, Ukraine and the West called the invasion a war of unwarranted aggression.