The Economist June 4th 2 022 25
EuropeWar in UkraineThe battle for Severodonetsk
S
everal thingstold Arif Bahirov that it
was time to leave Severodonetsk: the
bodies on the streets, left because it was
not safe to remove them; the fires that were
no longer being extinguished; the missile
that landed in the apartment downstairs.
On May 21st the media manager dusted off
his mountain bike and checked the tyres.
He grabbed a few treasured possessions, as
well as water and the most calorific food he
could find, and threw them into a ruck-
sack. Then he started pedalling towards
Bakhmut, 70km away.
The artillery-pockmarked road along
which Mr Bahirov cycled is now a central
focus of Russia's attempt to regain the ini-
tiative in Ukraine. As the bigger of the two
supply roads linking Severodonetsk, a
town that sits at the easternmost point of a
salient that juts into Russian-held territo-
ry, this route largely determines whether
Russia can encircle a Ukrainian defence
force estimated at 10,000 troops. The in-
vaders have pounded the road with every-
thing they have; and they now have at least
part of it in easy firing range. Mr Bahirov
didn't know any of this when he set off. Hehad been without news, an internet con-
nection or electricity for weeks. So he sur-
vived by wartime intuition: jumping into
the nearest ditch whenever he heard artil-
lery or fighter jets, and hoping for the best.
The endgame for Severodonetsk seems
to be under way. Excited Russian tv corre-
spondents at the scene are already claim-
ing a complete victory. That is an exaggera-
tion at this point, but their troops have a
solid foothold in most of the town, with
fierce battles now taking place in the west-
ernmost streets. Local sources suggest that
Ukraine has already begun to pull back
from positions around Severodonetsk
ahead of a broader retreat.Speaking on May 30th Serhiy Haidai,
the governor of Luhansk, the province in
which Severodonetsk lies, said it was only
a matter of a few days before a retreat to Ly-
sychansk might be necessary. The twin
town lies across the Donets river and offers
the additional advantage of being on a hill,
though the threat of encirclement re-
mains. Mr Haidai, who grew up in Severo-
donetsk, said it was a personal tragedy to
see his hometown in flames. Nearly 65% of
the town’s housing is now damaged be-
yond repair, he said. But he was proud to
have helped evacuate all but 15,000 of the
town’s pre-war population of 120,000: “I’ve
done what I set out to do.”
Russia has committed a substantial
proportion of its battle-worn forces to the
operations to take Severodonetsk and Ly-
man, a transport hub and possible bridge-
head for crossing the Donets river farther
north. These modest battlefield targets are
a remarkable step down from the Kremlin’s
initial ambition of taking over the entire
country, and they also fall some way short
of the more recently stated objective of tak-
ing the whole Donbas region, which in-
cludes neighbouring Donetsk province.
But the advance is real and bloody. Accord-
ing to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Uk-
rainian losses are running at 60-100 sol-
diers daily, with a further 500 injured.
Oleksiy Arestovych, a presidential ad-
viser, says his country’s artillery units had
been particularly affected in the barrage.
“We simply haven’t had the systems or mu-
nitions to answer fire,” he says. A mis-KYIV
Ukrainian troops face encirclement as Russia advances→Also in this section
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