By YURAS KARMANAU and ELENA BECATOROS
SLOVIANSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces in a “frenzied push” have seized half of Sievierodonetsk, the japanese Ukrainian metropolis that’s key to Moscow’s efforts to finish the seize of the commercial Donbas area, the mayor stated Tuesday.
“The town is basically being destroyed ruthlessly block by block,” Oleksandr Striuk stated. He stated heavy avenue combating continued and artillery barrages threatened the lives of the estimated 13,000 civilians nonetheless sheltering within the ruined metropolis that after was residence to greater than 100,000.
A Russian airstrike on Sievierodonetsk hit a tank of nitric acid at a chemical manufacturing unit, inflicting an enormous leak of fumes, in response to Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk area. He posted an image of a giant cloud hanging over town and urged residents to remain inside and put on gasoline masks or improvised ones.
Haidai stated later Tuesday that “most of Sievierodonetsk” was underneath Russian management, although he added that fierce combating continued and town wasn’t surrounded.
Sievierodonetsk is essential to Russian efforts to seize the Donbas earlier than extra Western arms arrive to bolster Ukraine’s protection. Moscow-backed separatists have been combating Ukrainian troops within the area for eight years and held swaths of territory even earlier than the invasion.
President Joe Biden stated Tuesday the U.S. will present Ukraine with the extra superior rocket techniques that its leaders have been begging for. In an essay revealed in The New York Occasions, Biden stated the rocket techniques will allow Ukraine “to extra exactly strike key targets.”
U.S. officers, talking earlier than Biden’s announcement on situation of anonymity, stated Washington will ship Ukraine a small variety of high-tech, medium-range rocket techniques. The rockets may very well be used each to intercept Russian artillery and to take out Russian positions in cities the place combating is intense, similar to Sievierodonetsk.
The rocket techniques can be taken from U.S. stock, which might get them to Ukraine rapidly. Ukrainian troops would additionally want coaching on the brand new techniques, which may take at the least per week or two.
Sievierodonetsk, which is 145 kilometers (90 miles) south of the Russian border, is in an space that’s the final pocket underneath Ukrainian authorities management within the Luhansk area. The Donbas is made up of the Luhansk and Donetsk areas.
Striuk stated greater than 1,500 residents have died of varied causes since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February. Evacuation efforts from Sievierodonetsk have been halted due to shelling.
“Civilians are dying from direct strikes, from fragmentation wounds and underneath the rubble of destroyed buildings, since many of the inhabitants are hiding in basements and shelters,” Striuk stated.
Electrical energy has been lower off, and folks want water, meals and drugs, the mayor stated: “There are meals provides for a number of extra days, however the challenge is how one can distribute them.”
In his nightly video handle, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated the scenario within the Donbas stays “extraordinarily troublesome” as Russia has put its military’s “most fight energy” there.
Not less than three folks had been killed and 6 wounded in a single day in a Russian missile strike on town of Sloviansk, west of Sievierodonetsk, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko stated in a Fb put up Tuesday. A college was amongst a number of buildings broken.
A crater was blasted within the highway between two condo buildings closely pockmarked by shrapnel.
The ground and stairwell of 1 constructing had been smeared with blood.
Resident Olena Voytenko, 59, stated she knew one of many folks killed, a person whose condo caught hearth within the blast.
One other resident, Mikhaylo Samoluk, stated the strike occurred in the midst of the night time. “I used to be on my couch and all of a sudden my couch simply jumped within the air,” he stated.
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Yuras Karmanau reported from Lviv, and Related Press author Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed.
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Observe the AP’s protection of the conflict at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
