‘Every metre is covered in our blood’: Horror of city Briton died defending

EVERY metre of the embattled city of Severodonetsk, where a former British soldier lost his life, is ‘covered in blood’, a Ukrainian general said yesterday.

Commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces Valeriy Zaluzhny’s comments came as his troops were pushed back from the centre of the key eastern industrial city.

Severodonetsk has been under heavy attack for weeks as Vladimir Putin’s troops try to capture the city in their push to conquer all of the Donbas.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces were fighting for ‘every metre’. He added that Russia was deploying under-trained troops, and was using its young men as ‘cannon fodder’.

Mr Zelensky said: ‘The human cost of this battle is very high for us.

‘It is simply terrifying... The battle for the Donbas will without doubt be remembered in military history as one of the most violent battles in Europe.’

Eduard Basurin, a pro- Russian separatist, said Severodonetsk had been ‘de facto’ blocked off after Russian forces blew up the ‘last’ bridge connecting it to Lysychansk.

‘The Ukrainian units that are there, they are there forever. They have two options: to surrender or die,’ he claimed. Jordan Gatley, a British soldier who left the army to fight in Ukraine, died defending the city. The 24-year- old was a rifleman in Edinburgh but left in March to ‘continue his career as a soldier in other areas’, his father Dean said of his hero son.

Regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said Russian forces now controlled 70 to 80 per cent of Severodonetsk but had not captured or encircled it.

‘They destroyed all the bridges, and getting into the city is no longer possible. Evacuation is also not possible,’ he told Radio Free Europe. Mr Gaiday said previusly that the Azot chemical plant, where hundreds of civilians have taken refuge, was being heavily shelled.