The civilians also refuse to leave the basements of the complex through the corridor opened by the Russian troops.
The separatist militias of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) accused the Ukrainian troops defending the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk on Wednesday of having “burst” the evacuation of civilians from inside the factory. On Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the opening of a humanitarian corridor between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. to evacuate civilians from the Azot complex and facilitate the surrender of Ukrainian forces entrenched there.
However, during the day no one has given up and the humanitarian corridor has only been used by a 74-year-old man. These are the informations of the head of the garrison of the Lugansk rebel militia, Alexander Nikishin, quoted by the Russian agencies. “This morning, around seven o’clock, a 74-year-old grandfather left there, he left alone. No one warned us beforehand,” Nikishin said.
Already in the afternoon, the separatist forces assured that the evacuation attempt “has been broken” by the Ukrainian military. In this way, the situation increasingly resembles that experienced in the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, an almost impregnable bastion that Russian and separatist troops took two and a half months to reduce.
The mayor of Severodonetsk, Alexander Striuk, for his part, stated that “the Russians are trying to take the city from various directions. Taking into account that the bridges have been blown up, the enemy believes that they are putting psychological pressure on our soldiers (…) but we continue to defend the city and maintain the line of defense».
When asked if the units that, together with the civilians, are in Azot have already been besieged due to the blowing up of the three bridges, Striuk replied that “the destruction of the bridges has complicated the situation and the escape routes are very dangerous, but there are, they are not completely blocked.
500 civilians and 400 military
According to the mayor, they are now doing everything possible to establish the necessary logistics and “find more or less viable solutions.” Striuk assured that the Ukrainian Army “controls the industrial zone of Severodonetsk and the perimeter that enables the connection with Lisichansk”, the neighboring city located a little further to the southwest, on the other side of the Severski Donets river. It is estimated that in the cellars of Azot there are about 500 civilians and 400 Ukrainian soldiers.
The alderman insisted that “the fighting is still going on in the center of the city (…) it is a changing situation, with partial successes and even sometimes with tactical waste.” Severodonetsk and Lisichansk are the last two towns that Ukrainian troops are defending in the Lugansk region. The rest of the enclave is already in the hands of the pro-Russian separatists and the forces sent to their aid by Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on his troops Tuesday night to “hold out” to the maximum in Severodonetsk. In his words, “it is vital to stay in Donbass (…) the defense of the region is essential to estimate who will dominate in the coming weeks” on the battlefield.
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