June 30, 2022

NATO, led by the United States, promised Thursday unwavering long-term support for Ukraine, which, while having regained possession of a strategic island for the control of maritime routes, is in a very perilous situation facing the Russians in a key eastern city.

It was a victory of great symbolic significance recorded by the Ukrainians with the departure of the Russian forces from Serpents’ Island, which they had taken in the first hours of their offensive.

The Russian army claimed to withdraw “as a sign of goodwill“, its objectives having been “achieved” and to facilitate Ukrainian grain exports from Ukraine through the Black Sea.

This militarized islet is located southwest of Odessa, the largest Ukrainian port where millions of tons of grain have been collected, and facing the mouth of the Danube.

The version of the Ukrainian military is radically different: the Russians abandoned Serpents’ Island because they found themselves “unable to withstand the fire of our artillery, missiles and airstrikes“.

In contrast to the Ukrainian success on Serpents’ Island, the situation in Lyssychansk, a city in the industrial basin of Donbass, a region in eastern Ukraine where most of the fighting is concentrated, “remains extremely difficult“, President Zelensky acknowledged on Thursday.

The bombings “very powerful“make it impossible to evacuate civilians, regional governor Serguiï Gaïdaï had recently deplored, estimating that there are still 15,000 civilians there.