SJEVERODONEZK (dpa-AFX) – According to Ukrainian information, Russian troops have advanced into the industrial area in the heavily fought city of Sievjerodonetsk. Fighting is already going on there, the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Hajday, wrote on Monday evening in his Telegram channel. According to this, Ukrainian troops only control the territory of the Azot chemical plant. The surrounding towns are also under constant fire.
In the war against Ukraine, Russian troops have been concentrating on taking the administrative center of Sievarodonetsk in the Luhansk region for some time. On Monday morning, Ukrainian authorities admitted the loss of the village of Metjolkine, south of the city.
According to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereshchuk, around 300 civilians were still staying at the Azot chemical plant. However, the situation is constantly changing, she said on Monday, according to the Ukrainian agency Ukrinform. Should the civilians entrenched there express their wish to be evacuated, an attempt will be made to set up an escape corridor, according to Wereshchuk. On Saturday, Hajdaj said the civilians did not want to be evacuated but were in constant contact.
Unlike the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, there is said to be no extensive network of bomb shelters in Azot. The individual emergency shelters are not connected to one another, Hajdaj had said. Ukrainian defenders and civilians held out for weeks in a bunker system under the Azovstal steelworks, long after Mariupol had been conquered by Russian troops./csp/DP/mis