The head of the Luhansk military administration, Serhiy Haidai, reports that units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine left Lysychansk "without losses", after which they moved to positions prepared in advance.
He said this in an interview with the BBC, as the Russian military department said that Ukrainian troops in Lysychansk allegedly "got into a cauldron". Haidai assures that this is not true.
According to him, the Ukrainians could hold the city for a long time, but given that Russia has a huge advantage in artillery and ammunition, "they would simply destroy the city from afar."
"So there was no point in staying: we would have been surrounded and had to sit there while the city was shelled. Therefore, we decided not to allow encirclement, so as not to try to retreat all at once," reports the head of the oblast administration and emphasized that the battle was lost, but not the war.
"We need to maintain troops so that when enough weapons arrive, we can conduct normal operations and counterattack" — Haidai explained.
The head of the oblast administration reported that the next goal of the Russians is to seize the Donetsk region.
At the same time, the leader of the Russian formation "LPR" Pasichnik announced the need to push Ukrainian troops away from the captured Luhansk oblast. At the same time, he says that "no one canceled the task of "denazification" of the entire territory of Ukraine."
On July 4, Putin, during a meeting with the Minister of Defense, Shoigu, ordered to "rest" the units that participated in the battles in the Luhansk region.
- On July 3, the General Staff of the Armed Forces announced the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Lysychansk due to the "multiple superiority" of the Russian occupiers.