The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
People in captured city are facing ‘catastrophe’ says Ukrainian official
AUkrainian regional official has warned of deteriorating living conditions in a city captured by Russian forces two weeks ago, saying Sievierodonetsk has no water, power or a working sewerage system and dead bodies are decomposing in hot apartment buildings.
Governor Serhiy Haidai said the Russians are unleashing indiscriminate artillery barrages as they try to secure their gains in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk province.
Moscow this week claimed full control of Luhansk, but Mr Haidai told the Associated Press: “Luhansk hasn’t been fully captured even though the Russians have engaged all their arsenal to achieve that goal.”
Russia’s forces “strike every building that they think could be a fortified position”, he said.
Sievierodonetsk, meanwhile, “is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe”, the governor wrote on social media.
“The Russians have completely destroyed all the critical infrastructure, and they are unable to repair anything.”
Mr Haidai reported last week that about 8,000 residents are in the city, which had a pre-war population of 100,000.
Luhansk is one of two provinces that make up the Donbas, a region of mines and factories where proMoscow separatists have fought Ukraine’s army for eight years.
After asserting full control of Luhansk, Mr
Putin said Russian forces would have a chance to rest, but other parts of eastern Ukraine are under sustained bombardment.
The Russian leader warned Kyiv it should quickly accept Moscow’s terms or brace for the worst.
Ukraine’s presidential office said yesterday that at least 12 civilians were killed and another 30 wounded by Russian shelling over the previous 24 hours.
Two cities in Donetsk – the other Donbas province – saw the heaviest barrage, with six people killed and 21 wounded.
In north-east Ukraine, another four people died and nine were wounded in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, where Russian shelling hit residential areas.
Commenting on Mr
Putin’s ominous words, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian leader was reacting to statements by Ukraine’s government and its Western allies about defeating Russia on the battlefield.
“Russia’s potential is so big that just a small part of it has been used in the special military operation,” Mr Peskov said.
“And so Western statements are utterly absurd and just add to the grief of the Ukrainian people.”
Elsewhere, Germany’s parliament overwhelmingly backed Sweden and Finland’s requests to join Nato.
German defence minister Christine Lambrecht said the two countries’ accession would greatly strengthen Nato’s northern and eastern flanks, noting their strong naval forces in the Baltic Sea and their land forces that know the region bordering Russia well.
All 30 member countries must agree before the Western military alliance can admit them.
Also, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said Ukrainian forces made advances near the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson.
The MoD’s intelligence briefing mentioned the counter-offensive as Ukrainian partisan activity also targets Russian forces in southern Ukraine.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said partisans blew up a railway bridge 15 miles north of Melitopol, east of Kherson, on Thursday to disrupt Russian resupply lines.