SLOVIANSK, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces in a “frantic push” have seized half of Sievierodonetsk, the eastern Ukrainian city that is key to Moscow’s efforts to complete the capture of the region Donbas industrialist said the mayor on Tuesday.
“The city is being ruthlessly destroyed block by block,” Oleksandr Striuk said. He said intense street fighting continued and that artillery bombardments threatened the lives of the estimated 13,000 civilians still taking refuge in the ruined city that was once home to more than 100,000.
A Russian airstrike in Sievierodonetsk hit a nitric acid tank in a chemical plant, causing a large leak of smoke, according to Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region. He posted an image of a large cloud hanging over the city and urged residents to stay inside and wear gas masks or makeshift masks.
Haidai said on Tuesday that “most of Sievierodonetsk” was under Russian control, although he added that fierce fighting continued and the city was not surrounded.
Striuk said more than 1,500 residents have died from various causes since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February. Sievierodonetsk evacuation efforts have been halted due to bombing.
“Civilians die from direct blows, fragmentation wounds and the rubble of destroyed buildings, as most people hide in basements and shelters,” Striuk said.
Electricity has been cut off and people need water, food and medicine, the mayor said: “There are food supplies for a few more days, but the problem is how to distribute them.”
Sievierodonetsk is important for Russian efforts to capture the Donbas before more Western weapons arrive to bolster Ukraine’s defense. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian troops in the region for eight years and occupied strips of territory even before the invasion.
The city, located 145 kilometers (90 miles) south of the Russian border, is located in an area that is the last pocket under Ukrainian government control in the Luhansk region. The Donbas is made up of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
In his nightly video, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the situation in the Donbass remains “extremely difficult” as Russia has put the “maximum combat power” of its army there.
At least three people have been killed and six injured overnight in a Russian missile attack in the city of Sloviansk, west of Sievierodonetsk, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a Facebook post on Tuesday. A school was located between several damaged buildings.
A crater exploded on the road between two apartment buildings heavily marked by shrapnel.
The floor and stairs of a building were stained with blood.
Resident Olena Voytenko, 59, said she knew one of the people killed, a man whose apartment caught fire in the blast.
Another resident, Mikhaylo Samoluk, said the strike took place at midnight. “I was on my couch and suddenly my couch jumped into the air,” he said.
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Yuras Karmanau reported from Lviv.
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