Ukraine’s Donbas region saw severe ground combat over the last 24 hours, multiple sources said, with the Ukrainian military claiming it had inflicted severe losses to attacking Russian Federation units. Serhiy Hadai, head of the Luhansk regional defense command, in a statement said heavy “positional fighting” was centered on the towns Rubezhne and Popansya, where Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) units in defensive positions are constantly exchanging fire with RF units opposite them.
He claimed Ukrainian units were holding their ground and inflicting more than 100 casualties on their opponents every day. Haidai said that the main RF unit fighting in this sector was 2nd Army Corps, a composite unit manned by RF officers and a mix of long-term soldiers drawn from occupied territories in Luhansk Region, and recent conscripts from the area, including students.
According to UAF intelligence, Haidai said, a hospital in the RF-occupied city Alchevsk received “about 30” RF fighters from a single Caucasus-recruited unit serving with 2nd Corps, for injuries received in Thursday battles.
According to an April 2, 06:00, situation report made public by Ukraine’s Army General Staff (AGS), the probable RF main effort in the Donbas sector was centered on the town of Izium, where RF and UAF units are locked in close-in, house-to-house fighting. The AGS morning statement reversed a Thursday announcement that the RF had taken full control of Izium and its key crossing of the Severskiy Donets River. The Friday AGS statement said UAF units still hold part of the city, but, RF units have set up a temporary bridge across the Severskiy Donets River, and are moving forces south.
Oleh Sinehubov, head of the Kharkiv region defense command, said that RF pressure was falling in his sector because of the RF decision move to troops away from Kharkiv to drive on Izium. This RF shift of forces has ended the RF siege of Kharkiv and has opened up an escape corridor for civilians attempting to escape Izium, he said.
Since Wednesday more than 4,000 Izium residents have reached Ukrainian lines and safety via this route, Sinehubov said. According to the AGS, on Thursday, UAF forces operating in Donetsk and Luhansk Regions repulsed nine RF attacks, destroying eight tanks, 44 infantry fighting vehicles, 16 trucks and 10 artillery systems.
An AGS estimate for Wednesday put RF 24-hour losses in those sectors at three tanks, two armored personnel carriers, two trucks and two artillery systems.If the AGS estimates are accurate, and fighting continues with Thursday’s intensity, RF forces attacking in Donbas could reach critical loss levels in a week. Presidential advisor Mykhaylo Podolyak said in a Friday statement that the UAF probably has sufficient forces to contain the new wave of RF attacks now in progress in Donbas, but, without western deliveries of heavy weapons, the ultimate outcome will be an “Afghanization” of the Russia-Ukraine war, with both sides constantly in combat for years, and neither side able to bring the war to an end.
Mykhaylo Podolyak repeated appeals made by President Volodymyr Zelensky and other senior Ukrainian officials to western states to give Ukraine the artillery, tanks, long-range air defense systems, jet bombers and jet fighters necessary to force the RF to abandon its attempt to take over Ukraine’s south and east. “There is no other option but heavy weapons, if we want to push the Russians out,” Podolyak said.
