The situation on the ground in the Lugansk region of eastern Ukraine, where the Russian military has made progress in recent days, is “worsening hour by hour”, regional governor Sergiy Gaidai said on Tuesday. .
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“The situation is very difficult and unfortunately it is only getting worse. It is getting worse day by day, hour by hour,” he said in a video posted on his Telegram channel.
“The bombardments are more and more intense” and “the Russian army has decided to completely destroy Severodonetsk”, a strategic city northwest of Lugansk, added Mr. Gaïdaï.
Severodonetsk “is being wiped off the face of the Earth,” he commented, calling the situation “almost critical.”
On Friday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu assured that the conquest of the Lugansk region was “almost complete”.
The Russians surrounded Severodonetsk and Lyssytchansk there, two localities separated by a river and which constituted the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance.
“We are like Mariupol”, a port in southeastern Ukraine ravaged by weeks of Russian bombardment and intense fighting with the Ukrainian army, compared regional governor Serguiï Gaïdaï on Tuesday.
According to him, the Lugansk region “is making every effort so that (the Russians) cannot progress” from the east of the country, in particular towards the symbolic city of Sloviansk, taken over from the pro-Russian separatists by kyiv in 2014.
“As of today, we can say that (the Russians) are trying to carry out a large-scale attack,” concluded Mr. Gaïdaï. Before adding: “And in the Donetsk region, the situation has also become much more complicated” for the Ukrainian army.
