Ukraine says no power, water in Russian-held Sievierodonetsk, bodies rotting in flats
- Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai warned the captured city ‘is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe’
- He said living conditions in Sievierodonetsk had deteriorated as Russian forces pounded the region with tanks and artillery
A Ukrainian regional official warned on Friday of deteriorating living conditions in a city captured by Russian forces two weeks ago, saying Sievierodonetsk is without water, power or a working sewage system while the bodies of the dead decompose in hot apartment buildings.
Governor Serhiy Haidai said the Russians were unleashing indiscriminate artillery barrages as they try to secure their gains in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk province. Moscow this week claimed full control of Luhansk, but the governor and other Ukrainian officials said their troops retained a small part of the province.
“Luhansk hasn’t been fully captured even though the Russians have engaged all their arsenal to achieve that goal,” Haidai said. “Fierce battles are going on in several villages on the region’s border. The Russians are relying on tanks and artillery to advance, leaving scorched earth.”
Russia’s forces “strike every building that they think could be a fortified position,” he said. “They aren’t stopped by the fact that civilians are left there, and they die in their homes and courtyards. They keep firing.”
Occupied Sievierodonetsk, meanwhile, “is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe,” the governor wrote on social media. “The Russians have completely destroyed all the critical infrastructure, and they are unable to repair anything.”
Haidai reported last week that about 8,000 residents remained in the city, which had a pre-war population of 100,000. Some Ukrainian officials and soldiers said Russian forces levelled Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk province’s administrative centre, before Ukraine’s troops were ordered out of the city late last month to avoid their encirclement and capture.