Ukraine says no power, water in Russian-held Sievierodonetsk, bodies rotting in flats
- Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai warned the captured city ‘is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe’
- He said living conditions in Sievierodonetsk had deteriorated as Russian forces pounded the region with tanks and artillery
A Ukrainian regional official warned on Friday of deteriorating living conditions in a city captured by Russian forces two weeks ago, saying Sievierodonetsk is without water, power or a working sewage system while the bodies of the dead decompose in hot apartment buildings.
Governor Serhiy Haidai said the Russians were 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 the governor and other Ukrainian officials said their troops retained a small part of the province.
“Luhansk hasn’t been fully captured even though the Russians have engaged all their arsenal to achieve that goal,” Haidai said. “Fierce battles are going on in several villages on the region’s border. The Russians are relying on tanks and artillery to advance, leaving scorched earth.”
Russia’s forces “strike every building that they think could be a fortified position,” he said. “They aren’t stopped by the fact that civilians are left there, and they die in their homes and courtyards. They keep firing.”
Putin says Russia’s campaign in Ukraine ‘hasn’t even started in earnest’
Occupied 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.”
Haidai reported last week that about 8,000 residents remained in the city, which had a pre-war population of 100,000. Some Ukrainian officials and soldiers said Russian forces levelled Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk province’s administrative centre, before Ukraine’s troops were ordered out of the city late last month to avoid their encirclement and capture.
Luhansk is one of two provinces that make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial region of mines and factories. Pro-Moscow separatists have fought Ukraine’s army in the Donbas for eight years and declared independent republics, which Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised before he sent troops into Ukraine.
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Ukraine forces regroup to defend Donetsk after losing eastern Luhansk province to Russia
After asserting full control of Luhansk, Putin said Russian forces would have a chance to rest and recoup, but other parts of eastern Ukraine have come under sustained Russian bombardment. The Russian leader warned the Ukrainian government in Kyiv that it should quickly accept Moscow’s terms or brace for the worst.
Ukraine’s presidential office said early Friday that at least 12 civilians were killed and 30 wounded by Russian shelling over the past 24 hours. Two cities in Donetsk – the other Donbas province – experienced the heaviest barrage, with six people killed and 21 wounded.
In northeast Ukraine, four more people were killed and nine were wounded in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, where Russian shelling hit residential areas.
Russia warns humanity at risk if West seeks to punish it over Ukraine
Commenting on Putin’s ominous statement, 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,” Peskov told reporters. “And so Western statements are utterly absurd and just add to the grief of the Ukrainian people.”
Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in its fifth month, has driven millions of people from their homes, killed untold thousands and shattered European security that was arduously reconstructed after World War II.
It has also rippled through the world economy by contributing to higher prices for food and fuel. Ukraine has been unable to export millions of tonnes of grain and other food, and Russia is facing international sanctions for its invasion.
