The President of Ukraine hailed the army; Chemical plant that sheltered civilians was attacked

When fierce fighting broke out in the city SievierodonetskThe President of Ukraine praised his country’s warplanes for defeating Russian forces in the Donbas region, in the east of his country.

“Remember how in Russia, at the beginning of May, they hoped to capture all of the Donbas?” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a late-night video address. “It’s already the 108th day of the war, it’s already June. Donbas is trying.”

He added that Moscow had suffered “significant” losses trying to capture Ukrainian-held territory in the region bordering Russia, much of which has been controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists. for more than 8 years.

But as Russia moved toward its larger goal of seizing the industrial sector, including the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, the street-by-street battle for Sievierodonetsk became the focal point of the conflict.

Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said in a Telegram post on Sunday that Russian forces were “heavy shelling” on parts of the city. “No one can say how many victims there were in the last 24 hours in Sievierodonetsk,” he said.

In a separate interview on Ukrainian television, he said that the Azot chemical plant, where hundreds of civilians were sheltering, had also been bombarded.

NBC news agency has yet to be able to independently verify his claims, but Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador to Russia from the “Luhansk People’s Republic,” said Saturday that 300 to 400 Ukrainian troops are still locked inside the house. machine along with several hundred civilians.

He said that Russian forces have established contact with the Ukrainian military to arrange the evacuation of civilians, but the troops will only be allowed to leave if they drop their guns and surrender.

Similar conditions persisted for weeks at Azovstal Steel Plant in the south of the city Mariupol before a civilian evacuation was arranged and the defensive troops were ordered by the Ukrainian military commanders to stand down. The warriors coming out of the Mariupol factory were taken prisoner by the Russians.

In a separate development, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in its latest assessment that Ukrainian intelligence believes the Russian military is planning to “fight a war in Russia”. longer.”

Quoting the deputy head of Ukraine’s national security service, they said the intelligence “is likely to indicate that the Kremlin, at a minimum, admits that it cannot achieve its goals in Syria.” Ukraine. rapidly and is continuing to adjust its military objectives in an attempt to correct the initial shortcomings of the invasion. “

Moscow has extended the war until October, with adjustments to be made depending on any success in the Donbas, according to the assessment.

Zelenskyy seemed to acknowledge this in his late-night speech. “No one can say now how long this burning of the soul of Russia will last,” he said.