Russia’s capture of the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk, triggering the fall of the entire Luhansk province, was hailed as a victory by Vladimir Putin. But it is a symbolic more than a strategic one, military experts say.
The Russian president is still a long way off from his objective of “liberating” the whole of the Donbas region, of which Luhansk is one half. On Monday he ordered his forces to press on into Donetsk province, the other half of Donbas, where the Ukrainians still control the cities of Slovyansk, Kramatorsk and Bakhmut with tens of thousands of troops.
Capturing the entire Donetsk region would require Russian forces to advance towards these heavily fortified cities 50km-70km west of Lysychansk, and about the same again to reach the administrative border.