The Ukrainian army has acknowledged the loss of the heavily contested city center of Sieverodonetsk in the east of the country. Russian troops bombed the city in the Luhansk region with artillery and drove out Ukrainian soldiers, the Ukrainian General Staff announced today. But the fight continued, he said.
A few hours earlier, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had said that in strategically important Sieverodonetsk there was “literally a fight for every meter”. According to his own statements, Ukrainian troops still controlled about a third of the city on Saturday.
For days, Sievjerodonetsk has been the center of intense fighting in the Luhansk region, more than 90% of which have already been captured by Russian and pro-Russian fighters. The Azot chemical plant in Sievjerodonetsk was also shot at. According to Ukrainian sources, civilians who used the plant’s facilities as an air raid shelter are still there.