- Ukraine and Russian forces closed in on the battle for Sievierodonetsk
- Hundreds take refuge in a chemical plant
- Reports say the weapons depot in the west hit
KIEV / LVIV, June 12 (Reuters) – Russian forces have blown up a bridge linking the stormed Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk to another city on the other side of the river, cutting off a possible evacuation route for civilians. say local authorities on Sunday.
Sievierodonetsk has become the epicenter of the battle for control of the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine. Parts of the city have been plagued by some of the bloodiest fighting since the Kremlin unleashed its invasion on February 24.
“The key tactical goal of the occupiers has not changed: they are pushing Sievierodonetsk, there is intense fighting, literally every meter,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video, adding that the Russian army was trying deploy reservations. forces in the Donbas.
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Zelenskiy said the image of a 12-year-old boy injured in a Russian attack is now the enduring face of Russia around the world. “These facts will highlight the way Russia is viewed by the world,” he said.
“Not Peter the Great or Lev Tolstoy, but children wounded and killed in Russian attacks,” he said in an apparent reference to comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin last week comparing Moscow’s military campaign to the conquest of Russian lands. Russian Emperor Peter the Great in the 18th century. held by Sweden.
Ukrainian and Russian forces were still fighting street-by-street in Sievierodonetsk on Sunday, Luhansk Province Governor Serhiy Gaidai said.
Russian forces have occupied most of the city, but Ukrainian troops maintain control of an industrial area and the Azot chemical plant where hundreds of civilians are taking refuge. “About 500 civilians remain in the territory of the Azot plant in Sievierodonetsk, 40 of them children. Sometimes the military manages to evacuate someone,” Gaidai said.
But the Russians had destroyed a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River linking Sievierodonetsk with its twin city of Lysychansk, Gaidai said.
This left only one of the three bridges still standing.
“If after a new bombing the bridge collapses, the city will be really cut off. There will be no way out of Sievierodonetsk in a vehicle,” said Gaidai, who noted the lack of a high-level agreement. fire and agreed evacuation corridors.
In Lysychansk, Russian bombing killed a six-year-old boy, Gaidai said.
Reuters could not independently confirm this account.
STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS
Vuhlehirsk thermal power plant burns after bombing, in the middle of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the city of Svitlodarsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on June 12, 2022. REUTERS / Gleb Garanich
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After being forced to reduce its initial targets after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Moscow has focused on expanding control in the Donbas, where pro-Russian separatists have had territory since 2014.
The fall of Sievierodonetsk, the last pocket of occupied Ukrainian land in the strategic Lugansk region, would bring Russia one step closer to one of the stated goals of what Putin calls a “special military operation.”
Elsewhere, Russian cruise missiles destroyed a large U.S.-European weapons depot in the western Ukrainian region of Ternopil, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
The governor of Ternopil said rockets fired from the Black Sea into the city of Chortkiv had partially destroyed a military facility and injured 22 people. A local official said there were no weapons stored there.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the various accounts.
Moscow has criticized the United States and other nations for sending weapons to Ukraine, threatening to attack new targets if the West supplies long-range missiles.
Recently, Ukrainian leaders have renewed calls for more heavy weapons. On Sunday, the Ukrainian General Staff told 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 request for systems. of heavier artillery.
Russian forces were firing mortars and artillery south and southwest of Sievierodonetsk, according to the Ukrainian General Staff. But he said Ukrainian forces had rejected Russian attempts to advance on some communities.
Reuters was unable to independently verify battlefield reports.
Putin says Russia’s actions are aimed at disarming and “de-sanitizing” Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies call it an unprovoked war of aggression to capture territory.
Also on Sunday, the leader of Russia’s backed Donetsk separatist region in Donbas said there was no reason to pardon two British men sentenced to death last week after being captured while fighting for Ukraine.
A Donetsk court on Thursday found Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner – and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun – guilty of “mercenary activities” that seek to overthrow the republic. Read more
Britain says Aslin and Pinner were exempt regular soldiers under the Geneva Conventions on Prosecution for Participation in Hostilities. Aslin’s family said he and Pinner “are not, nor have they ever been, mercenaries.”
Separately, the family of a former British soldier, Jordan Gatley, told social media that he was killed fighting for Ukraine in Sievierodonetsk. Read more
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Report by Natalia Zinets and Pavel Polityuk, additional report from the Reuters offices Written by Kim Coghill, Angus MacSwan and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by William Mallard, Frances Kerry and Diane Craft
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