A Ukrainian soldier in Sievierodonetsk last week. Credit … Oleksandr Ratushniak / Reuters
LVIV, Ukraine – Days after Ukrainian officials confirmed that their forces had withdrawn from the devastated industrial city of Sievierodonetsk, the city’s exiled mayor painted a bleak picture of life for those on Monday. they remain, in an eastern pocket where Russian forces have done. they have focused their attention in recent weeks.
“There is no good news that I can share with you,” Mayor Oleksandr Striuk told a morning news conference as he described a city occupied by battered Russia and in places leveled by artillery fire.
Some 7,000 to 8,000 civilians, out of a pre-war population of 160,000, were still in the city when it fell to Russian forces on Friday, Striuk said, based on information from sources still at the helm. ‘interior. Its humanitarian situation is disastrous, with devastated infrastructure and clean water and scarce food.
About 90 percent of the city’s buildings have been destroyed, Ukrainian officials said earlier.
Ukrainian forces have retreated westward to Lysychansk, the twin city on the opposite bank of the Siversky Donets River. But with no bridges still standing, they had to use whatever material they could find in Sievierodonetsk to retreat, Striuk said.
He and other local officials were forced to flee elsewhere in Ukraine when the situation deteriorated. Those who remain will probably only be able to evacuate to cities controlled by Russia, as has been the case in other captured areas.
There was a certain symbolic importance given to Sievierodonetsk, the mayor acknowledged, and it had become a regional administrative center in Luhansk province after pro-Russian separatists seized part of the region in 2014.
He also said that now Russian forces would probably focus their efforts on Lysychansk, the last city of Luhansk that remained in Ukrainian hands.
After abandoning their frustrated push to take Kyiv at the start of the war, Russian forces have tried to claim full control of Donbas, the eastern region containing the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces where their separatist allies already had territory.
On Monday, Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai called on civilians to evacuate Lysychansk, calling the situation “very difficult”.
“Because of the real threat to life and health, we call for an evacuation immediately,” he said in a post on the social messaging app Telegram. “Save yourself and your loved ones. Take care of the children. Make sure that we will assist you in the evacuation cities of the territory of Ukraine. “
The Ukrainian army staff said Monday in a statement that Russian forces were trying to blockade Lysychansk from the south, with the support of artillery, and bombing the area’s civilian and military infrastructure.
Even after Ukraine’s withdrawal from Sievierodonetsk, the Russian assault on the east has not stopped. Russian troops launched 20 attacks on 12 settlements in Donetsk province from Sunday to Monday, with civilian casualties recorded, according to a Telegram publication of the Ukrainian National Police.
Much of Ukraine, even the western and northern areas that had escaped the worst fighting in recent weeks, remained on the edge on Monday after tensions rose over a sudden escalation of strikes in Kyiv and other areas over the weekend.
Dozens of rockets were launched from Belarusian airspace into Kyiv and the surrounding region, killing at least one person in the city.