Key east Ukraine city is largely under Russian control: Zelensky
The strategic city has become the focus of Russia’s offensive as it seeks to seize an eastern swathe of Ukraine, after being repelled from other parts of the country.
“Severodonetsk remains the epicentre of fighting in the Donbas,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, referring to the region in eastern Ukraine that includes the provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk, reports AFP.
“It is a very fierce battle, very difficult, probably one of the hardest in the course of this war,” Zelensky said in his evening address to the nation.
Sergiy Gaiday, governor of Lugansk, which includes Severodonetsk, conceded that Ukraine’s forces might have to pull back as Russian troops were shelling the city “24 hours a day”.
Later in the day, he said on Telegram that Moscow’s forces control “a large part” of the city — but that its industrial areas were still held by Kyiv.
“The fighting is only going on in the streets inside the city,” he added.
Russia’s offensive is now targeting the Donbas, after its forces were pushed back from Kyiv and other areas following the February 24 invasion.
The cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which are separated by a river, were the last areas still under Ukrainian control in Lugansk.
Lysychansk remains fully under the control of the Ukrainian army but is under “powerful and chaotic” shelling, Gaiday said, accusing Russian forces of deliberately targeting hospitals and humanitarian aid distribution centres.
“The destruction is enormous,” he added.
– ‘Systemic, severe, and speeding up’ –
Guterres warned Wednesday that 1.6 billion people were likely to be affected as the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine worsened.
“The war’s impact on food security, energy and finance is systemic, severe, and speeding up,” the UN secretary-general said.
He added that “for people around the world, the war is threatening to unleash an unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution, leaving social and economic chaos in its wake”.
