Ukraine: Fighting approaches in Sheverodonetsk – Situation is ‘very difficult’

Fighting with Russian forces has reached the Sheverodonetsk region, a city in eastern Ukraine where the situation is “very difficult,” the governor said today.

“Russian troops have been pushed close enough to be able to hit with mortars,” Serhiy Gaidai wrote in the Telegram app, adding that the city was “simply being destroyed.”

He accused the Russian military of bombing the city “continuously” using, among other things, multiple Smertch and Tornado rocket launchers. According to him, the bombs also target the Azot plant, where civilians have taken refuge in anti-aircraft shelters.

“The situation in the city is very difficult. Fighting was already taking place in the periphery of Sheverodonetsk yesterday,” said Gaidai, who estimated that next week would be decisive.

Severodonetsk, a city with a population of about 100,000 before the war, has been under pressure from Russian troops and pro-Russian separatist fighters for weeks. On May 6, Mayor Alexander Stryuk announced that the city was “almost encircled.”

Dozens of civilians have been killed in bombings there in recent weeks.

Sheverodonetsk is one of the most important cities in this area still under Ukrainian control, as is the city of Lisichank.

They are located at least 80 km east of Kramatorsk, which has become the administrative center of Ukrainian Donbass since Moscow-backed separatists occupied the eastern part of this large coal basin in 2014.

Earlier, Reuters reported, citing the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, that Ukraine was fighting to maintain control of a critical highway in the city of Severodonetsk.

Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanik told a news conference that there were alternative routes for supplying Ukrainian units in Sheverodonetsk, which is surrounded on three sides by Russian forces.

Motuzyanik said Russia’s goal was to encircle Ukrainian units everywhere in the city, as well as in neighboring Lisichank.