Lysychansk, Ukraine's Last Luhansk Outpost, Falls to Russia

Lysychansk managed to hold out a week after taking its twin city, Sievierodonetsk. But on Sunday, a pro-Russian flag also flew there.

The last major city held by Ukraine in the hotly contested eastern province of Lugansk has fallen, officials said. military officials. the two sides said on Sunday, giving Moscow a decisive victory in its campaign to seize Donbass, the mineral-rich region bordering Russia that has long been in the crosshairs of President Vladimir V. Putin.

The industrial city of Lysychansk, on a rise overlooking the Siversky Donets River, held out for a week after Russia took control of Sievierodonetsk, its twin city on the other side from the river. But as Russia flooded Lysychansk with artillery fire and strangled its supply lines, relying on months of bombardment and weeks of fierce street fighting that reduced the two cities to gray husks, the Ukrainian defenders forced to retreat.

This left Russian soldiers posing for photos in front of Lysychansk's town hall, chanting "Lysychansk is ours" and waving the flag of the Donetsk People's Republic - the pro-Moscow breakaway state Mr Putin claimed to protect when his forces invaded Ukraine, video posted to Twitter on Sunday showed.

Western military analysts had expressed little doubt that Moscow would ultimately prevail in the Twin Cities, but with their undeniable loss came pressure on the United States and its allies to push through the more powerful weapons that they promised to Ukraine at the front. For Western nations, however, the next phase of the war will be a test not only of military logistics but also of solidarity. As the conflict drags on, their own citizens feel the economic pain, and unity among allies may be difficult to maintain.

Russia now faces many new challenges of its own. It controls more than a fifth of Ukraine - most of the towns in name only, skeletal remains emptied of their inhabitants after months of bombardment - but it will have to replenish depleted forces and ammunition as he leads what promises to be a fierce and endless fight. ground war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday denied that Lysychansk was entirely in Russian hands. At a press conference with the Australian Prime Minister, who is visiting Kyiv, Zelensky said fighting was taking place on the outskirts of the city.

ImageSandbags at the entrance to a metro station in Kyiv, Ukraine on Sunday.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

But videos posted on social media appeared to show Russian troops in the center- town, and residents who fled the area in recent days said the bulk of Lysychansk's Ukrainian forces left on Friday.

Hours after the army Russian declared victory in the city, the Ukrainian army admitted that it had withdrawn its forces there. "The continued defense of the city would lead to fatal consequences," he said in a statement on Facebook. "In order to preserve the lives of the Ukrainian defenders, it was decided to withdraw."

With the province of Lugansk now in hand,