The city of Sievierodonetsk in the Donbass, the scene of fierce fighting between the Ukrainian and Russian armies for several weeks, is “ fully occupied by Russian forces, its mayor Oleksandre Striouk announced on Saturday.
“ The city is completely occupied by the Russians “, declared the mayor of Sievierodonetsk on Ukrainian television at the end of the afternoon. In the evening, the spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, confirmed the capture of this city, announcing its “total liberation” as well as that of three neighboring localities: Borivske, Voronove and Syrotyne. Thereby, “ the entire territory located on the left bank of the Donets -a river- within the limits of the Lugansk region is under full control Russian military and pro-Russian separatists, he added.
The Ukrainian army announced on Friday its withdrawal from Sievierodonetsk, a city of about 100,000 inhabitants before the war, to better defend the neighboring locality of Lyssytchansk. According to Oleksandre Striouk, civilians have started to leave the Azot factory in Severodonetsk, where several hundred people have taken refuge in recent days to protect themselves from the bombardments.
” These people lived almost three months of their lives in basements, shelters. It’s difficult emotionally and physiologically “, he said, believing that, “ now they (had) need for help: medical and psychological “.
In the afternoon, a representative of the pro-Russian separatists, Andrei Marotchko, declared that the Moscow forces had “ took full control of the industrial zone of the Azot factory “. Another spokesman for the separatists, Ivan Filiponenko, for his part affirmed that more than 800 civilians who had taken refuge in this factory during these weeks of clashes had been ” evacuated without specifying in which direction.
The capture of Sievierodonetsk by the Russian army comes after several weeks of fierce fighting in a region, that of Lugansk (east), hotly contested by the Ukrainians and the Russians. The latter now control it almost completely and ” street fights are underway in Lysychansk, according to the separatists.
(With AFP)