Russian troops control 70 percent of Severodonetsk, where there is no possibility of evacuating the population, while Ukraine is negotiating the departure of civilians from the Azot chemical plant, the head of the Lugansk Military Administration, Serhiy Haidai, reported today.
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“The Russians are in full control of most of Severodonetsk. The fighting is so intense that the fight can last twenty-four hours, not just for a street, but for a single apartment block“, he said in statements to television collected by Ukrainian agencies.
In social networks, he added that the Russians control 70 percent of Severodonetsk and that “mass evacuation and the provision of humanitarian aid are impossible due to the bombing.”
Thus, “the soldiers manage to evacuate only a few people a day,” he added.
He pointed out that around 500 civilians remain at the Azot plant, 40 of them children, and that “the industrial area is being heavily bombarded by large-caliber enemy artillery.”
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He specified that Azot shelters are not as strong as Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworksdefended for weeks by the Azov Regiment, so people have to be removed “necessarily with security guarantees”.
“We are trying to negotiate a corridor, so far without success, with the help of Iryna Vereshchuk,” the Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration, said.
On the other hand, he stated that there is no threat of encirclement by Ukrainian troops in the Lugansk region.
Lisichansk, the last bastion of Ukraine
Pro-Russian separatists from the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic are preparing to close the siege around Lisichansk, the last Ukrainian stronghold in this region.
“The main attack on Lisichansk is likely to be carried out alongside the attack on Siversk to not allow anyone to withdraw from the encirclement in the direction of Sloviansk. This is something that will happen shortly,” the “ambassador” in Russia of the separatist region, Rodion Miroshnik, said on his Telegram account.
Miroshnik added that several Ukrainian positions west of Azot, in the direction of Novodruzhesk and Pryvilia, were also destroyed.
“Part of the Ukrainian forces left Pryvilia for Novodruzhevsk. Some of them tried to hide in the fields and in a limestone quarry between Novodruzhevsk and Bilohorivka. We attacked them. No one will give them a chance to change positions quietly anymore,” he said.
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