by Natalia Zinets
KYIV (Reuters) – The Russian army massively bombarded the city of Sievierodonetsk on Friday, one of the last strongholds held by Ukrainian forces in the province of Luhansk, a priority target for Moscow in the Donbass with the neighboring province of Donetsk.
According to the Ukrainian army general staff, the Russian army launched a major assault to try to conquer the city, but it was repelled after suffering heavy losses.
Russia has been trying, since it recorded the failure of its offensive against Kyiv in mid-April, to seize Sievierodonetsk and its twin sister, Lychchansk, on the other bank of the Siverskiy Donets river.
Taking the two cities would allow Moscow to claim full control of the province and place it under the authority of the “Luhansk People’s Republic”, proclaimed by pro-Russian separatists in 2014 and whose President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged. independence just before the start of its “special operation” in Ukraine.
“The Russian army has started a large-scale destruction of Sievierodonetsk. The intensity of the shelling has doubled, they (the Russians) are shelling residential areas to destroy them house by house,” said the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk province , Serhiy Gaïdaï, on his Telegram account.
“We don’t know how many victims there are because it is simply impossible to go and check in every apartment,” he added.
The methodical destruction of cities, which aims to deprive their defenders of shelter until they are forced to withdraw, has been the tactic used by Russia since the beginning of the “battle of Donbass”.
In Moscow, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the complete “liberation” of the “Luhansk People’s Republic” was imminent.
MORE SOLDIERS IN THE AZOVSTAL FACTORY
In a televised address on Thursday evening, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said that the Donbass had become a “hell”.
After the ongoing surrender of the last defenders of Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant after a three-month siege, the conquest of the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk would allow Vladimir Putin to claim the victory he aspires to in Ukraine.
According to Sergei Shoigu, some 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers have become prisoners of war in recent days. Kyiv did not confirm this figure, while Britain put forward the figure of 1,700.
An unknown number of soldiers are still in the tunnels of the factory, including the commander of the “Azov battalion” which was responsible for defending it, a pet peeve of Moscow since the 2014 war because of the presence in its ranks of fighters ultranationalists or even neo-Nazis.
Denis Prokopenko, the commander, confirmed having received the order to lay down arms. He said all civilians and wounded soldiers had been evacuated and said his men were now working to collect the bodies of their fallen comrades.
“I hope that in the near future their families will be able to bury these soldiers with honors,” he said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which oversees the “evacuations” of Azovstal, from the Ukrainian point of view, said it had registered several hundred prisoners of war, without further details.
The Kyiv authorities say they want to exchange them for Russian soldiers, but Russian politicians have promised that some will be tried and even executed.
(Report by Natalia Zinets, Max Hunder and Tom Balmforth in Kyiv, French version Tangi Salaün, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)