On June 10, 2022, in the town of Lysychans’k, Luhansk region, Ukraine, smoke rose after a military attack on a compound at the Azot chemical plant in Sieviero Donetsk while Russia was attacking Ukraine.
Oleksandr Ratushniak | Reuters
The Russian bombardment of the Azot chemical plant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk ignited a major fire after a large oil leak on Saturday as the fight for the city intensified, the local governor said.
In the neighboring Donetsk region, Russian media reported that a huge cloud of smoke could be seen floating in the air after an explosion in the city of Avdiivka, which houses another chemical plant.
The weekly battle for Sieviero Donetsk, a small city in Luhansk Oblast, which became the focus of Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine, shattered parts of the town and was the bloodiest since the February 24 invasion of Moscow. It is a part of the naive thing.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai does not say whether the fire in the factory, where hundreds of civilians had been evacuated, was extinguished. Reuters was unable to validate the report on its own.
On national television, Guydai said non-stop fighting was intensifying in Severodonetsk. He previously said that Russian troops controlled most of the city, but Ukraine controlled the Azoth chemical plant.
Ukrainian military staff said Ukrainian defenders had repelled Russian attacks in parts of Sieviero Donetsk on Saturday, and fighting continued elsewhere.
Ukrainian troops have also pushed back Russian attacks on three small towns northwest of Slovyansk in Donetsk Oblast, but fighting continues in the region’s fourth settlement and eastern city, staff said on Facebook. Said in. ..
The Russian RIA news agency is said to have been taken from Donetsk, which showed a large cloud of smoke rising from Avdiivka, just north of the city of Donetsk, currently held by the Ukrainian army and controlled by Russian-speaking separatists. I posted the video mentioned.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the RIA report or video.
Ukraine has called for rapid delivery of heavy weapons from the West to turn the tide of the war, saying Russian troops have at least 10 times more cannons.
Ukrainian troops proved to be more elastic than expected, but in a report on Friday, the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War was consistent because it used the last stock of Soviet-era weapons and munitions. Support for the transition to a new Western supply and system that said it would need the West.
The institute said effective artillery “is becoming more and more decisive in mostly static combat in eastern Ukraine.”
On Saturday, Germany’s Build am Sontag quoted French and Ukrainian government sources as saying that German Prime Minister Olav Schortz had France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s before the Seven Group Summit at the end of June. He said he would travel to Kive with Prime Minister Mario Dragi.
A German government spokesperson told Reuters that the report could not be confirmed and that the Elysee Palace in Paris and the Italian government did not immediately respond to the request for comment.
None of the three leaders have been to Kieu since Moscow invaded Ukraine on February 24th. Macron has sought to maintain dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the beginning of the war. Some eastern and Baltic states see it undermining his efforts to put him in the negotiating table.
President Volodymyr Zelensky made a rebellious note on Saturday.
“We are definitely going to win this war that Russia has begun,” he told a conference in Singapore via a video link. “It is the battlefield of Ukraine that determines the future rules of this world.”
Moscow looks to expand control in the eastern Donbas region, where pro-Russian separatists had already held territorial belts since 2014, after being forced to reduce their original broader campaign goals. Toward.
Russia’s strike took power on Saturday in the two largest Ukrainian cities in Donetsk, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, said regional governor Pablo Kirirenko.
On national television, he said cutting off electricity in the town of Donetsk, which remains in Ukraine’s hands, is part of a deliberate Russian strategy.
Grain shortage
Conflicts between neighboring countries, two of the world’s largest grain exporters, are reverberating far beyond Ukraine.
The United Nations said on Friday that up to 19 million people worldwide could face chronic hunger next year as exports of wheat and other foods decline.
Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Agriculture said on Saturday that up to 300,000 tons of grain could have been stored in a warehouse at Mykolaiv’s Black Sea Port, and Kyiv was destroyed by Russian bombardment last weekend.
Turkey sought to secure transactions so that Ukraine could resume shipments from the Black Sea port, which accounted for 98% of prewar grain and oilseed exports. But Moscow says Kieu has to clean up the mine harbor, and Ukraine says security guarantees are needed to prevent it from remaining exposed.
The Battle of Sievierodonetsk and its destruction are reminiscent of weeks of bombardment of the southern port city of Mariupol. It was abandoned before Russian troops ruled the city last month.
Moscow has denied targeting civilians, but both say they have inflicted heavy casualties on each other’s troops.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the battlefield reports in the conflict.
Russia calls the action a “special military operation” to disarm and “blame” Ukraine, and Kieu and his allies call it a provocative war of aggression to occupy the territory.
