“Every day there is a fire”: in Lyssytchansk, a nearby town of Sievierodonetsk, which was shot for several weeks and where Russian and Ukrainian forces are now fighting in street clashes, residents are also under constant bombing.
Many residents of this city of 100,000 people, isolated in Sievierodonetsk by the Donets River, fled. All that is left are the elderly, the people who take care of them or those who cannot afford to go elsewhere.
Every day there is shelling, every day there is burningsaid Yuri Krassnikov, retired, sitting on a bench in an area with many damaged buildings and burned pavilions.
Not far from there, the building of a technical school was in the throes of a violent fire – the flames fled from the windows and large clouds of black smoke.
” No one will help me. I tried to go to the municipal authorities, but no one, everyone was gone. They left the people! […] Where do I go at 70? “
Serguiï Lipko, he, shows his ruined house, in a district very close to the Donets river, as explosions echo around. In the bedroom, a rocket landed in the middle of the bed, without exploding.
He also has no plans to leave, despite the slow advance of Russian forces that now almost completely surround Lyssytchansk and Sievierodonetsk, two cities that have been hit hard by deindustrialization in recent years.
” In our country, we have to work all our lives to have a roof. That’s why we don’t go where we don’t. Many people in our town did not leave because they worked all their lives to get an apartment. “
Ivan Sossnine, 19, remained to care for his disabled grandmother. Here is our home. We know nothing else, this is where we grew up. Where will we go? And we don’t have enough money to stay long elsewhere.
But Vadim Chvets, 62, standing in front of a grocery store with half -empty shelves, is trying to keep his spirits up. Despite everything, he was able to make his vegetable garden nowadays, using water from a lake, the water distribution network no longer works.
I have no idea what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know how we’re going to live. But of course we expect the best.he said.
Lyssytchansk and Sievierodonetsk form the last amalgamation that is still under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk region. Their capture would open the way to Kramatorsk, a large city in the Donetsk region, to the Russians.
kyiv plans to withdraw its troops from Sievierodonetsk
You may need to withdraw of Sievierodonetsk, in part it was indicated on Wednesday Serguiï Gaïdaï, governor of the Luhansk region, on the Ukrainian channel 1+1, while intense fighting continued on Wednesday in this strategic city.
Tuesday night, he indicated that touching this city is a matter of mission impossibleeven though the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense still confirmed on Wednesday morning that the Ukrainian forces fight the attacks the Russians.
Since the autumn of May 20 of the port of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, the Russians have focused their offensive on this city on the western border of the Luhansk region.
They have only progressed slowly so far, led by Western analysts who say the Russian invasion launched on February 24 turned into a war of attrition, with little progress achieved at the cost of massive destruction and heavy and casualties.
In an extraordinary televised message on Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian forces had completely liberated residential areas of this industrial city, known for the large chemical plant Azot, and now controlled 97% of the territory of the Luhansk region.
If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on Tuesday night that his staff is chasing absolutely heroic defense of the Donbassthe Ukrainians reiterated that they needed more powerful weapons to stop the Russian steamroller.
The delivery of several rocket launcher systems, with a range of about 80 km, slightly larger than Russian systems, has been announced, but it is unclear when Ukrainians will be able to start using them.
Right now, Ukrainians have to make do with Western weapons of the lower range. Such as the 22 M109 howitzer, of American design and with a range of about 20 km, which Norway announced on Wednesday that it had shipped to Ukraine.
France Media Agency
Source: Radio-Canada
