Sievjerodonetsk is largely without electricity. For more than two weeks, the residents have lacked mobile coverage and it is difficult to get drinking water because the pumps do not work.
“Hardest challenge”
All critical infrastructure has been destroyed, Volodymyr Zelenskyj states in a televised speech on Sunday.
“More than two-thirds of the city’s housing stock has been destroyed,” he told Reuters.
According to Bloomberg Russia currently controls 95 percent of the Luhansk region.
Russia also says it has taken control of Sevierodonetsk. But the data has been denied by both Ukraine and the American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
In a status report on Saturday writes the think tank that “the Ukrainian military is facing its most difficult challenge since the isolation of the Azov Steelworks in Mariupol”. They believe that the risk of significant tactical losses is great for Ukraine, but that the Russian attacks may also stop again.
The main target Shevjerodonetsk
Sievjerodonetsk’s military chief, Oleksandr Striuk, describes how the city is exposed to constant Russian artillery shelling and how the Ukrainian forces are in a difficult defensive position.
President Zelensky says Russia has a clear focus on Luhansk’s last Ukrainian-controlled city.
“Taking Sievjerodonetsk is the main target of the occupation,” he told Reuters.