Russians control most of city in east

Agencies

LVIV/PHILADELPHIA: Russia said Tuesday it would establish a humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians from a chemical plant in Severodonetsk, as the two sides battled for control of the key city in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Russian forces have stepped up efforts to cut off the Ukrainian troops still in the industrial hub, destroying all three bridges which connect it across a river to Lysychansk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile once again appealed for heavy weapons from the West, criticising the “restrained behaviour” of some European leaders.

Moscow has for weeks targeted the twin cities as the last areas in the Lugansk region of the Donbas still under Ukrainian control. Communication with the city was “complicated” with the situation on the ground changing every hour, the head of Severodonetsk’s administration, Oleksandr Stryuk, told Ukrainian

television.

Around 500 civilians were taking shelter under “heavy fire” in the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk, Stryuk said.

The Russian defence ministry said it was “ready to organise a humanitarian operation” on Wednesday to evacuate from the

plant to the separatist-controlled part of the Lugansk region.

Regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said on Monday Ukraine’s forces had been pushed back from Severodonetsk’s centre with the Russians controlling 70 to 80% of the city in their attempt to “encircle it”.

Capturing Severodonetsk would open the road to Sloviansk and another major city, Kramatorsk, in Moscow’s push to conquer Donbas, a mainly Russian-speaking region partly held by pro-kremlin separatists since 2014.

‘West building grain silos to help export wheat’

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday disclosed a Western plan to build silos on the borders of Ukraine to facilitate export of grain caught in a Russian blockade of Black Sea ports that has triggered a global food supply crisis.

Biden blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for high food prices in the US and warned that the plan for new infrastructure to help get more Ukrainian wheat to world markets was “taking time”.

“I’m working closely with our European partners to get 20 million tons of grain locked in Ukraine out onto the market to help bring down food prices,” Biden said in Philadelphia.