The governor of Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said in an interview with local television that the Azot chemical plant remained under Ukrainian control, adding that fighting was taking place on Sunday “on the outskirts of the city, on the streets just near the factory”. . Russian troops also blew up a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River, a possible evacuation route from Sievierodonetsk to Lysychansk, where artillery fire on Sunday killed a woman and destroyed four houses, Haidai said. Sievierodonetsk has become the focus of Moscow’s efforts to advance into eastern Ukraine with Russian attacks focusing on the occupation of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, collectively known as the Donbas, following their failure to quickly occupy the Ukrainian capital, Ukraine. . The occupation of Sievierodonetsk and the twin city of Lysychansk would give Russia full control of Luhansk. In his speech Saturday night, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that “fierce street fighting continues in Sievierodonetsk”, adding that the Donbas region “endures”. “Do you remember how in Russia, at the beginning of May, they hoped to occupy all of Donbass?” said the president. “It is already the 108th day of the war, already June. “Donbas is being held.” Haidai reiterated on Sunday that Ukraine still controls the Azot plant, the largest chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk, which houses hundreds of civilians. The Ukrainian official also denied as “false” the claims of the Russian-backed separatists that 300 to 400 Ukrainian fighters were trapped in the factory which was under “blockade”. “Russia is making every effort to occupy this city and take full control of it, but it has not succeeded so far,” he said. Ukrainian officials had previously ruled out possible comparisons between the situation in Azot and the months-long siege of the Azov steel plant in the port city of Mariupol, where civilians and Ukrainian fighters had been hiding for weeks under Russian attack. The fighting is one of the fiercest Ukraine has faced since the Russian invasion on February 24. The Pentagon said in a recent statement that Moscow was using its superiority in terms of force and artillery to gradually occupy territory in and around Sievierodonetsk, adding that Russia was probably preparing to deploy a third battalion. battle formations to increase its attack. capacity. “The simultaneous deployment of all three battalions is likely to reduce the formations’ long-term ability to regenerate combat power after operations,” the statement added. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly warned last week that their army quickly ran out of ammunition and lost to Russia on the front lines, urging its Western partners to increase heavy arms supplies. Ukrainian officials have also acknowledged that his losses range between 600 and 1,000 a day. Demonstrating Russia’s military superiority in Sievirodonetsk, Haidai said: “The enemy artillery is simply demolishing – floor-to-floor – the houses that our troops used as shelters. “So when we push the enemy out of a way, they start using their tanks and artillery to destroy the house-to-house area.” An unnamed senior U.S. defense official told the Washington Post at the weekend that Russia was likely to take control of the entire Luhansk region in a matter of weeks as Ukraine supplies ammunition. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that its cruise missiles had destroyed a large US-European weapons depot at Ternopil in western Ukraine, a claim disputed by Ukrainian officials who said no weapons were stored there. The governor of the Ternopil region said a rocket attack on the Black Sea city of Chortkiv by Russia had partially destroyed a military installation as well as a number of residential buildings, injuring 22 people, including seven women and a 12-year-old. The Guardian could not independently confirm any of the different accounts. The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a police recruiting center at Lviv, near the Polish border. Elsewhere in the country, Zelensky said the Ukrainian army was gradually liberating territory west of the Kherson region and had some success in Zaporizhia, the only major city in southeastern Ukraine under Ukrainian control. In Moscow, his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Sunday called on the Russians to be “united” as he congratulated his country on its national holiday. Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am “Today we know very much how important it is for the Homeland, for our society, for the people to be united. “This unity, the devotion to the motherland, is a responsibility passed down to us by our ancestors,” the Russian president said during a televised ceremony in which he presented awards to scientific and cultural figures in favor of the Kremlin. Earlier this week, Putin compared himself to 18th-century Russian Tsar Peter the Great, drawing a parallel between what he described as their twin historical quest to reclaim Russian territory.
