Ukraine has a rare advantage in Lysychansk, but only if supplies can get in

To anyone standing on a hilltop in Lysychansk, it is clear why this city that is soon to be the focal point of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine’s east seems defendable: it’s on high ground.

Across the sprawling plains of Ukraine’s Donbas region, which is home to Lysychansk, elevation is a rarity, leaving the city’s Ukrainian defenders in an advantageous position.

But it will be impossible to defend Lysychansk, whose pre-war population was around 100,000 people, without a way to get in the necessary supplies: ammunition for Ukrainian tanks and artillery, food and equipment for the thousands of troops garrisoned there.

“If the help will come, it won’t be occupied,” said Oleksandr Voronenko, 46, a military police officer stationed in Lysychansk. “If there is no help with military equipment, of course they will drive us out. Because every day the equipment is destroyed; you have to replace it with something new.”