The battle for the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk continues to rage, as local officials say Russia now controls most of the key city.
“The night was difficult,” Oleksandr Striuk, head of the military administration of the city of Severodonetsk, told national television on Thursday morning. “Our armed forces control part of the city: the industrial area and the surrounding neighborhoods.”
Striuk said about 10,000 people remained in the city. The industrial area, which contains the Azot chemical plant, where about 800 people were said to have taken refuge last week, was heavily bombed overnight, he said.
There were no casualties at the chemical plant overnight and “the anti-aircraft shelter also survived,” Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk region’s military administration, said via Telegram on Thursday.
“The blasts damaged at least two plant stores at the chemical plant,” Hayday said. “One of them is key: for the production of 1-B ammonia. However, there were no emissions of chemicals into the environment: all fertilizers and chemicals, according to the owner of the company, they were removed from the territory on the second day of the war. “
Earlier Thursday, in a national television interview, Hayday said “street fights” continue to rage in the city.
The situation there is developing quite dynamically, “Hayday said.
“Russia is constantly firing on the part that is controlled by the Ukrainians. They are constantly firing artillery, and very powerfully,” he added. “And they are dismantling the houses floor by floor. In that sense, it is very difficult.”
Hayday said he believed Russia wanted to capture the entire city over the weekend, in time for Russia Day on Sunday, but that they would not achieve that goal.
“As soon as we have long-range artillery to be able to hold artillery duels with Russian artillery, our special forces will be able to clear the city in two or three days,” he said.
A National Guard commander fighting for control of the city told national television on Thursday that his forces were “catastrophically lacking in artillery cannons.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday evening that “in many ways, the fate of our Donbas is being decided there,” in Severodonetsk.
On Wednesday, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, said his army was advancing as planned in its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
“You will see the liberation of all Donetsk and Luhansk provinces,” he said. “This is expected to happen soon.”