LUHANSK, July 23. /ITAR-TASS/. Units of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) has regained control over the town of Lisichansk, located 90 kilometres north-west of Luhansk, the LPR militia told the Novorossiya news agency on Wednesday.

Militiamen succeeded in destroying several units of Ukrainian military, which silenced the town’s shelling by them, a commander of the militia rapid response unit said adding that “the Ukrainian units improvised a defense outside Lisichansk but did not retreat at a far distance.”

The militia said that armed clashes for the town of Severodonetsk were underway in LPR’s west.

On July 22, the militiamen abandoned the town of Lisichansk that had been a battleground between the LPR units and the Ukrainian regular army for several months.

The self-defense headquarters said that the Ukrainian military used cannon and rocket weapons, including the Grad multiple missile launchers, that were pounding residential houses in the centre as well as the Zolotarevka and Belogotovka localities on the outskirts of Lisichansk.

Earlier on Wednesday, the press centre of the government's "anti-terror operation" said that the militia still had under their control the cities of Luhansk, Avdeyevka, Gorlovka, Donetsk and some sectors of Ukraine’s state border with Russia in an area of the villages of Uspenka, Marinovka and Dyakovo.