DShells and rockets fell on Wednesday at regular intervals on the industrial city of Severodonetsk, in eastern Ukraine, journalists from Agence France-Presse noted at midday.
A building was on fire and very few civilians were visible in the streets. Residents ventured out when the shelling stopped for a few minutes, before running for cover when the strikes resumed, saw journalists from Agence France-Presse. Severodonetsk, more than 100,000 inhabitants before the war, is the easternmost city held by the Ukrainian army, very close to the front line with the pro-Russian separatist territories. The Russian army has said in recent days to focus its efforts on the east of the country, including the Lugansk region, where Severodonetsk is located. A UN humanitarian convoy, made up of eight trucks, was able to reach Severodonetsk on Tuesday, bringing food rations, flour and blankets for some 17,000 people, as well as 4 electric generators for the city’s hospitals.
Fighting intensifies in the east
“Eastern Ukraine continues to suffer from the intensification of fighting, with thousands of people deprived of gas and water, and homes repeatedly hit by strikes in Severodonetsk”, had deplored the Coordination Office UN Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha). One person was killed on Tuesday and five were injured in a shelling on the nearby town of Rubizhne, with seven others “extracted from the rubble”, Lugansk region governor Sergey Gaidai said on social media.
The Russian position that the deaths of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Boutcha were staged is “untenable” in view of the satellite images that were broadcast, the German government said on Wednesday. “The explanations given on the Russian side according to which these were staged or that Russia was not responsible for the assassinations are not tenable in our eyes” after “the evaluation of the satellite images” broadcast in the press, German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told a press conference in Berlin.
Evacuation call
kyiv on Wednesday called on residents of eastern Ukraine to evacuate the region “now”, amid fears of a major offensive by the Russian army on the Donbass, now a priority target of the Kremlin. The regional authorities “call on the population to leave these territories and do everything to ensure that the evacuations take place in an organized manner”, declared Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, quoted by the Ministry of Integration on Telegram, adding that he had to do it “now” or risk “death”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called a “gross and cynical provocation” by the Ukrainian authorities the discovery of civilian bodies in the town of Boutcha, near kyiv, after the withdrawal of forces from Moscow. During an interview with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin mentioned in particular “the crude and cynical provocation on the part of the kyiv regime in the city of Boutcha”, according to a press release from the Kremlin. This is the first reaction of the Russian president on this affair which arouses international indignation.
Before Vladimir Putin, other Russian officials had denied any abuse by Moscow’s forces in Boutcha, the Kremlin describing as “falsification” the images of bodies strewing the streets of this city published since last weekend by the media. On Wednesday, Russian diplomacy spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Western officials and media of “delivering a ‘guilty’ verdict against our country. […] without even trying to check anything”.
