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. 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.
From an elevated position in Lysychansk, an AFP team saw black smoke rising from the Azot factory in Severodonetsk and another area in the city. Along the road from Lysychansk to Kramatorsk, Ukrainian forces were transporting more weapons systems to the front, including an M777 howitzer, while specialist vehicles were carrying tanks to be repaired.
In the town of Novodruzhesk, close to Lysychansk, there was still a smell of burning and smoke from a group of houses that had been destroyed by fire from shelling at the weekend, with just chimneys left.
“It’s not safe anywhere, it just depends on the time of day, that’s all,” said a soldier standing at the local fire station with a skull logo on his sleeve. “There are tons of people (still) here,” he added.
Further away in Sloviansk, Nataliya, 41, a now unemployed cleaner said she was trying to decide whether to evacuate.
“People will leave again if they start bombing the town heavily,” she told AFP. “If it’s like Mariupol, they’ll give us buses. We’ll leave if the Russians enter Sloviansk.”
The European Union needs to “give a positive signal” to Ukraine and be “open” to granting it candidate status, France’s Europe minister, Clement Beaune, said Tuesday. Ukraine has applied to become a member of the bloc, with the European Commission due to give its recommendation in the coming days. But some member states are sceptical about potentially fast-tracking Ukraine’s accession.
The process will “take time”, Beaune said, adding that the first priority was to “stop the war”. “Ukraine is fighting and defending our shared European values, it must at least be a candidate for the EU,” President Zelenskyy said Tuesday.
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