MOSCOW: The Russian army said it would establish a humanitarian corridor on Wednesday to evacuate hundreds of civilians from the Azot chemical plant in the city of Severodonetsk. “Guided by the principles of humanity, the Russian armed forces and the formations of the Lugansk People’s Republic are ready to organise a humanitarian operation to evacuate civilians”, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday.
The humanitarian corridor will be in place between 8 am and 8 pm Moscow time on Wednesday, the defence ministry said, adding the evacuees would be transported to the city of Svatovo in the separatist-held region of Lugansk.
Moscow also urged “militants of nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries” at the plant to “stop senseless resistance” and lay down their arms.
Authorities in Ukraine have said that there are over 500 civilians hiding inside Azot, adding that it was difficult to support them but there were some reserves inside the plant.
A representative of the separatist authorities in Lugansk, Vitaly Kiselyov, estimated that some 2,500 Ukrainian and foreign fighters could be holed up at the Azot plant. Moscow has laid siege for weeks to the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, the last areas in the eastern Ukrainian region of Lugansk still under Kyiv control.
The Russian army said that Ukrainian authorities requested that civilians from the Azot plant be transported to Kyiv-controlled Lysychansk but said that the evacuation there was not possible because the last bridge linking the cities had been destroyed.
Meanwhile, Russian forces on Tuesday stepped up efforts to cut off Ukrainian troops in the key industrial city of Severodonetsk in the east of the country despite Ukrainians insisting they were holding on.
Moscow has laid siege for weeks to the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which are separated by a river, as the last areas in the eastern Donbas region of Lugansk still under Ukrainian control.
The head of Severodonetsk’s administration said “massive shelling” had destroyed a third bridge linking the twin cities, but insisted his city was “not isolated”.
“There are communication channels even if they are quite complicated”, Oleksandr Stryuk told Ukrainian television. Ukraine’s “continue to defend the city” but that the situation on the ground “changes every hour”, he added.
On Monday, Sergiy Gaiday, Governor of Lugansk, told Radio Free Europe that Russian forces had “destroyed all the bridges and getting into the city is no longer possible. Evacuation is also not possible”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has branded the human cost of the battle for east “simply terrifying”, urging Western allies to speed arms deliveries to shore up Ukraine’s ability to reclaim territory.
“We just need enough weapons to ensure all of this. Our partners have them.”
His presidential adviser, Mikhaylo Podolyak, has listed hundreds of howitzers, tanks and armoured vehicles as among items needed by the Ukrainian army. — AFP