Russian forces have occupied most of Sievierodonetsk, pulverizing parts of the city in one of the deadliest attacks since invading Ukraine on February 24, and a victory there could give them the impetus to a wider battle for control. Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. “The main tactical goal of the occupiers has not changed: they are pushing in Sievierodonetsk, there are fierce battles – literally for every measure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video on Sunday night. in Donbass. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Zelensky said that the image of a 12-year-old who was injured in a Russian strike is now the permanent face of Russia worldwide. “These very events will underline the way people see Russia,” he said. “Not Peter the Great, not Lev Tolstoy, but children who were wounded and killed in Russian attacks,” he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a statement last week comparing Moscow’s military campaign to his conquest. Russian emperor Peter of the Great Century. held by Sweden. Ukrainian and Russian forces are still fighting head-to-head in Sievierodonetsk on Sunday, Luhansk provincial governor Serhiy Gaidai said. Russian forces have taken control of most of the city, but Ukrainian troops are still in control of an industrial area and the Azot chemical plant, which houses hundreds of civilians. “About 500 civilians remain on the grounds of the Azot plant in Sievierodonetsk, 40 of them children. Sometimes the army manages to evacuate someone,” Gaidai said. But the Russians had destroyed a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River that connected Sievierodonetsk with the twin city of Lysychansk, Gaidai said. This left only one of the three bridges still standing. “If the bridge collapses after further bombardment, the city will be cut off. There will be no way we can leave Sievierodonetsk by car,” Gaidai said, noting the lack of a ceasefire agreement and no agreed evacuation corridors. Gaidai said Lysychansk was also being bombed by Russian forces and a six-year-old boy was killed there. Reuters could not independently confirm this account. In Pokrovsk, southwest of Sievierodonetsk, women, children and the elderly, some in wheelchairs, boarded the only train to evacuate people on Saturday, at the start of a long journey from the conflict zone to safety in Lviv near the Polish border. The Lysychansk oil refinery is burning after a bombing near the city of Lysychansk in the Luhansk region in the midst of Russia’s attack on Ukraine on June 12, 2022. REUTERS / Gleb Garanich read more “We were detained until the last minute, we did not want to leave, but our lives forced us to survive,” Lyuba, a woman from Lysychansk, told Reuters television as she waited for the train to leave. “We are leaving, we do not know where, to whom, but we are leaving.” STRATEGIC IMPACT The fall of Sivierodonetsk, in the last pocket of Ukrainian land held in the strategic Luhansk region, would bring Russia one step closer to one of the declared goals of what Putin calls a “special military operation.” Russian forces fired mortars and artillery south and southwest of Sivierodonetsk, according to the Ukrainian General Staff. However, he said Ukrainian forces had repulsed Russian efforts to reach out to certain communities. Reuters could not independently verify the reports on the battlefield. After being forced to limit its initial targets after its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Moscow has turned its attention to expanding control of Donbas, where pro-Russian separatists have held territory since 2014. Russian forces have been involved in continuous bombardment of cities in the south and east, leaving many in ruins and thousands of civilians dead, according to the United Nations. Elsewhere, Russian cruise missiles destroyed a large warehouse containing US and European weapons in the Ternopil region of western Ukraine, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported. The governor of Ternopil said rockets fired from the Black Sea into the town of Chortkiv had partially destroyed a military installation and injured 22 people. A local official said there were no weapons stored there. Reuters could not independently confirm the different accounts. On Sunday, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Facebook that General Valeriy Zaluzhny, the head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, had spoken with General Mark Milley, the top US military officer, and reiterated his call for more heavy artillery systems. Moscow has criticized the United States and other nations for sending weapons to Ukraine, threatening to hit new targets if the West supplied long-range missiles. Putin says Russia’s actions are aimed at disarming and “denationalizing” Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies call it an unprovoked offensive to seize territory. Also Sunday, the leader of the Russian-backed Donetsk separatist region in Donbas said there was no reason to pardon two Britons who were sentenced to death last week after being arrested along with a Moroccan while fighting for Ukraine. Britain says they were regular soldiers exempted from the pursuit of hostilities under the Geneva Conventions. read more Separately, the family of a former British soldier, Jordan Gatley, said on social media that he was killed fighting for Ukraine in Sievierodonetsk. read more Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Reuters’s Writing by Michael Perry. Editing: Simon Cameron-Moore Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
