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The governor of the besieged Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk said that all bridges leading to it had been destroyed.
Serhi Hayday said that the delivery of supplies and the evacuation of civilians is now impossible, as all avenues to the city have been destroyed.
Heavy fighting is taking place in the eastern city, with Ukrainian officials saying Russian artillery has pushed Ukrainian forces away from the city centre.
For weeks, the capture of Severodonetsk was a major military objective of Russia.
Control of Severodonetsk and the nearby city of Leschansk would give Moscow control of the entire Luhansk region, much of which Russian-backed separatists already control.
The three bridges leading to Severodonetsk were destroyed, Hayday posted on Telegram. He added that the residents who remained in the city were forced to stay in “extremely difficult conditions”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the human cost of the battle for the city as “terrifying”. He said Ukrainian forces were fighting Russian forces for “literally every meter”.
Reports indicate that regarding 70 percent of the city is now under Russian control.
A military representative of the pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic said the remaining Ukrainian forces in the city should “surrender or die”.
A senior Russian official said Moscow’s goal was to protect the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which declared their independence from Ukraine.
“In general, the protection of republics is the main goal of the special military operation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying.
Ukrainian officials have said Western-supplied weapons are not arriving quickly.
A senior presidential adviser told Zelensky that to end the war the Ukrainian army needed a “heavy weapons parity” and published a list of military equipment he said Kyiv required.
An adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister told the BBC that the forces defending Severodonetsk would have been more effective if heavy weapons had been provided earlier.
Yuri Sak said the forces were defending the city “to the best of our ability” but would be “more efficient in repelling the enemy and liberating Ukrainian lands if we received more heavy weapons now”.
He added that Russia’s superiority was overwhelming – firing an average of 50,000 rounds a day and launching “a barrage of mortars, aerial bombardments and missile strikes” on Ukraine.
In recent weeks, Western countries have committed to sending long-range weapons to Kyiv, including the United Kingdom, which for the first time said it would send multiple launch missile systems to help Ukraine defend itself.
