In a scenario that echoes the siege of the port city of Mariupol last month, Russian forces on Monday reinforced their control over Severodonetsk, in eastern Ukraine, as they managed to stop the last routes for the evacuation of civilians. , said a Ukrainian official.
Amid shelling, the governor of Lugansk, Serhii Gaidai, wrote on Telegram that all bridges near the area were destroyed, making it impossible for humanitarian cargo to enter or for citizens to leave. “Now it’s impossible to drive into town, deliver something there. Pickup is impossible.”
According to Gaidai, 70% of the small industrial town, the focus of one of the war’s bloodiest battles, is under Russian control, although the remaining Ukrainian defenders are not completely neutralized. “They have the capacity to send the wounded to hospitals, so there is still access,” he told Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian service. “But it’s hard to take guns or reservists.”
Ukraine is making increasingly urgent requests to Western powers for heavy weapons to help defend Severodonetsk, a city Kiev sees as key to the battle over the country’s eastern Donbass region — and, of course, to the entire course of Ukraine’s war. war, now in its fourth month.
After failing to take Kiev at the start of the invasion, Moscow has focused on expanding control in eastern Ukraine, in the area comprising Lugansk and Donetsk, which has been occupied by Kremlin-backed separatists since 2014, as well as trying to seize more territory off the coast of Ukraine. black sea.
Damien Magrou of the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine, which has forces in Severodonetsk, said the situation there could become the same scenario as in Mariupol, “with a large pocket of Ukrainian defenders isolated from the rest of the troops” in the country. “That’s one of the reasons why it’s so important for Western partners to deliver long-range artillery as quickly as possible.”
Mariupol has fallen into disrepair, with the local government estimating 90% of buildings damaged and perhaps 20,000 dead, among more than 400,000 pre-war residents. There were notorious attacks, such as the destruction of a theater and a maternity hospital. Ukrainian resistance was made possible by the large network of tunnels and bunkers inside the Azovstal steel mill, designed in Soviet times to withstand even a nuclear attack. Without water, food or reinforcements, however, she became impossible.
To fight on an equal footing in the east, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podoliak listed the heavy weapons from the West that would be needed, including 1,000 howitzers, 500 tanks and 1,000 drones. In recent days, the Kremlin’s criticism of the US and other nations for sending weapons to Kiev has mounted, with the threat of further attacks in the event of a long-range missile transfer.
In a recent report, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have destroyed weapons and equipment sent by Americans and Europeans, as in a high-precision missile action against a target near the railway station in Udachne, northwest of Donetsk. There were no comments from the Ukrainian side.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the other hand, has again voiced dissatisfaction with the support offered by Germany, accusing Prime Minister Olaf Scholz of being overly concerned about the repercussions on Berlin’s ties with Moscow. The comments, made to German public broadcaster ZDF, come amid rumors that the German prime minister would make his first trip to Kiev since the start of the war on Thursday.
“We need Prime Minister Scholz to be sure that Germany supports Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “He and his government must decide: there cannot be a trade-off between Ukraine and relations with Russia.”
The German, who denies the allegations, has rejected requests to visit Kiev, saying he would only go to the Ukrainian capital if he had something concrete to announce. Earlier on Monday, Scholz told reporters that Germany had sent one of the most advanced artillery systems to Ukraine and that the completion of the process took time because before that it was necessary to train the Ukrainian military to use it.
