Russian forces stormed the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk and attacked an area sheltering hundreds of civilians, a Ukrainian official said on Monday.
Ukraine has issued increasingly urgent calls for more Western weapons to help defend Sievierodonetsk, and Kyiv says this could be key to the outcome and future of the war for control of the Donbas region.
In an unconfirmed report by Ukraine, a Russian-backed separatist said the last bridge to the city was destroyed on Sunday, blocking the Ukrainian defenders.
“They have two choices: emulate their fellow soldiers and surrender or die,” as quoted by the Russian news agency RIA, separatist spokesman Eduard Basurin. “They have no other options.”
District Governor Sergei Gadai said on Sunday night that the last crossing over the Siverskyi Donets River was still standing after another bridge collapsed earlier in the day.
“The third bridge is working. However, the condition of the bridge is threatening: Half of it is destroyed, it is impossible for trucks to pass over it,” he said.
On Monday, he said clashes were raging in the city, where Ukrainian forces are advocating building buildings.
“The battles are so fierce that it can take days to fight over a single building, not just on a street,” he said in a statement on his social media account.
Gaidai, the governor of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, which includes Sievierodonetsk, said that Russian artillery fire also fell on the Azot chemical plant, where hundreds of civilians were sheltered.
Hundreds of seriously injured Ukrainian civilians and soldiers were stranded at Azovstal steelworks for weeks before the city of Mariupol surrendered to Russia last month. Ukrainian officials say cholera has spread among the remaining residents due to bodies buried in the rubble of destroyed residential buildings.
Gaidai estimates that Russian forces now control about 70% of Sievierodonetsk and said they destroyed “block by block” in one of the bloodiest attacks since the invasion began on February 24.
“The Russians continue to occupy the city, having a significant advantage in artillery, they somehow pushed the Ukrainian soldiers,” Gaidai said on Monday. Said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video speech Sunday night that Russia is trying to deploy a military reserve in the Donbas.
Zelenskiy also said that the child-death attacks have created a lasting image of Russia to the rest of the world, rather than the images Moscow is trying to portray.
source: Noticias
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