Russian troops have taken over about a third of the city of Sheverondonyezhsk in eastern Ukraine, but the operation to occupy it is taking longer than expected, a pro-Russian separatist leader told Russia’s state-run TASS news agency.
The blows of the Russian artillery have turned much of Severodonietsk into wreckage. Russian forces entered the southeast and northeast of the city, but the Ukrainian defenses delayed their advance on Donbas.
“We can already say that one third of Severodonetsk is now under our control,” Leonid Pasetsnik, leader of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Lugansk, told TASS. Fighting is raging in the city, where Russian troops are not advancing as fast as they would like, he continued.
However, “we want above all to keep the infrastructure of the city” upright, he added.
The promotion of the Russians is complicated by the fact that there are several chemical plants in the area of ​​this industrial city.
Lugansk was recognized as an independent state entity by Russia shortly before the Russian army invaded Ukraine, on the 24th of February. Kyiv and its allies in the West consider the region part of Ukrainian territory. Russia has been focusing its military effort lately on occupying the entire Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledges that the “maximum firepower” of Russian forces has been transferred.
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