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| Russia Manages to Control Most of the City of Severodonetsk |
International Military - Russian troops now control most of the city of Severodonetsk, the center of the bloody fighting for the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Street fighting continued to rage on Saturday in the city, with Russian and Ukrainian troops still locked in battle.
"The situation remains difficult, fighting continues, but unfortunately, most of the cities are under Russian control. Some positional fighting is taking place in the streets," said the governor of the Luhansk region, which forms Donbas together with neighboring Donetsk region, Serhiy Haidai, as quoted by Reuters. CNN, Sunday (12/6/2022).
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Haidai said on national television that the most active fighting areas were Severodonetsk, Popasna and the Siverskyi Donets river area. He added that Russian troops used "highly destructive thermobaric rocket artillery." “Unfortunately, enemy artillery only dismantled the building from floor to floor that was used as a shelter.
In this case, it is difficult because the enemy will get rid of one road, and then they will start dismantling the neighborhood house by house with tanks, artillery and grads, forcing the Ukrainian troops in Severodonetsk to continue moving to new positions and regroup," the governor said.
Haidai said Ukraine still controlled the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk, where 800 people were reportedly sheltering, after a Russian-backed official claimed Ukrainian fighters were trapped there as well. "The story about the blockade of the Azot factory is a lie spread by Russian propagandists," Haidai said on the Telegram messaging app.
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Rodion Miroshnik, a leader of the Russia-backed Luhansk People's Republic, on Saturday claimed up to 400 Ukrainian fighters were sheltering in the factory compound, hiding alongside civilians in bomb shelters, and negotiations for their surrender and the safe evacuation of civilians were underway.
"The combatants are trying to make demands, namely to allow them to leave the chemical plant area with the hostages and provide a corridor to Lysychansk. Such demands are unacceptable and will not be considered," Miroshnik said. Meanwhile, in a speech on Saturday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Ukrainian troops in the region.
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"I am proud of our defenders who were able to stop the advance of these hostile people, these invaders, for weeks and keep our defenses strong," Zelensky said. Zelensky said the struggle for the strategic city could determine the outcome of the war in the east of the country.
"Severodonetsk remains the center of confrontation in the Donbas," Zelensky said earlier this week. "This is a very fierce battle, very difficult... Probably one of the most difficult of this war," he added.
"In many ways, the fate of our Donbas is determined there," he said. Severodonetsk is located in the heart of the Donbas, a sprawling industrial area in eastern Ukraine that has seen intermittent fighting since 2014, when Russian-backed separatists controlled two territories there - the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic.
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