Russia destroys bridge over Ukrainian river, chopping escape route

Russian forces have blown up a bridge linking the embattled Ukrainian metropolis of Sievierodonetsk to a different metropolis throughout the river, chopping off a attainable evacuation route for civilians, native officers stated on Sunday.

Sievierodonetsk has change into the epicenter of the battle for management over Ukraine’s jap Donbas area. Parts of town have been pulverized in among the bloodiest preventing because the Kremlin unleashed its invasion on Feb. 24.

“The key tactical goal of the occupiers has not changed: they are pressing in Sievierodonetsk, severe fighting is ongoing there – literally for every meter,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated in his nightly video handle, including that Russia’s navy was attempting to deploy reserve forces to the Donbas.

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Zelenskiy stated the picture of a 12-year-old injured in a Russian strike was now the enduring worldwide face of Russia. “These very facts will underscore the way in which Russia is seen by the world,” he stated.

“Not Peter the Great, not Lev Tolstoy, but children injured and killed in Russian attacks,” he stated, in an obvious reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s remarks final week evaluating Moscow’s navy marketing campaign to Russian emperor Peter the Great’s 18th century conquest of lands held by Sweden.

Ukrainian and Russian forces had been nonetheless preventing street-by-street in Sievierodonetsk on Sunday, the governor of Luhansk province, Serhiy Gaidai, stated.

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Russian forces have taken many of the metropolis however Ukrainian troops stay answerable for an industrial space and the Azot chemical plant the place a whole bunch of civilians are sheltering. “About 500 civilians remain on the territory of the Azot plant in Sievierodonetsk, 40 of them are children. Sometimes the military manages to evacuate someone,” Gaidai stated.

But the Russians had destroyed a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River linking Sievierodonetsk with its twin metropolis of Lysychansk, Gaidai stated.

That left simply certainly one of three bridges nonetheless standing.

“If after new shelling the bridge collapses, the city will truly be cut off. There will be no way of leaving Sievierodonetsk in a vehicle,” Gaidai stated, noting the dearth of a cease-fire settlement and no agreed evacuation corridors.

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In Lysychansk, Russian shelling killed a six-year-old, Gaidai stated.

STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS

After being compelled to reduce its preliminary targets following its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has turned its consideration to increasing management within the Donbas, the place pro-Russian separatists have held territory since 2014.

The fall of Sievierodonetsk, within the final pocket of Ukrainian land held within the strategic Luhansk area, would transfer Russia a giant step nearer to one of many acknowledged targets of what Putin calls a “special military operation.”

Elsewhere, Russian cruise missiles destroyed a big depot containing U.S. and European weapons in western Ukraine’s Ternopil area, Russia’s Interfax company reported.

Ternopil’s governor stated rockets fired from the Black Sea on the metropolis of Chortkiv had partly destroyed a navy facility and injured 22 folks. A neighborhood official stated there have been no weapons saved there.

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Reuters couldn’t independently verify the differing accounts.

Moscow has criticised the United States and different nations for sending Ukraine weapons, threatening to strike new targets if the West equipped long-range missiles.

Ukrainian leaders lately have renewed pleas for extra heavy weapons. On Sunday, the Ukrainian common workers stated on Facebook that General Valeriy Zaluzhny, the top of Ukraine’s armed forces, had spoken to General Mark Milley, the highest U.S. navy officer, and reiterated his request for extra heavy artillery techniques.

Russian forces had been firing mortars and artillery south and southwest of Sievierodonetsk, in line with Ukraine’s common workers. But it stated Ukrainian forces had repulsed Russian makes an attempt to advance in the direction of some communities.

Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the battlefield stories.

Putin says Russia’s actions intention to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies name it an unprovoked conflict of aggression to seize territory.

Also on Sunday, the chief of the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk area within the Donbas stated there was no cause to pardon two British nationals sentenced to dying final week after being captured whereas preventing for Ukraine.

A court docket in Donetsk on Thursday discovered Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner – and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun – responsible of “mercenary activities” in search of to overthrow the republic. learn extra

Britain says Aslin and Pinner had been common troopers exempt underneath the Geneva Conventions from prosecution for participation in hostilities. Aslin’s household stated he and Pinner “are not, and never were, mercenaries.”

Separately, the household of a former British soldier, Jordan Gatley, stated on social media he was killed preventing for Ukraine in Sievierodonetsk.

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