New Delhi: The eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk has been "fully occupied" by the Russian army, the mayor said on Saturday, after weeks of fighting, news agency AFP reported. "The city has been fully occupied by the Russians," AFP quoted mayor Oleksandr Striuk as saying.
“The (Russians) appointed a commandant. But the city is so destroyed that it will be difficult for people to cope with this situation,” a report by CNN quoted the mayor as saying.
Notably, the Ukrainian army on Friday said that it would withdraw its forces from the city having around 100,000 inhabitants before the war in a bid to defend the neighbouring city of Lysychansk.
Striuk said that civilians had started to evacuate the Azot chemical plant where several hundred people had been hiding from Russian shelling.
"These people have spent almost three months of their lives in basements, shelters. That's tough emotionally and physically," he said, adding that these people now need medical and psychological help.
According to the local military officials, the last troops deployed in the city had to leave as it was difficult to keep defending their positions.
A senior military commander said that the decision to evacuate the city had to be taken “because the number of dead in unfortified territories may grow everyday…it makes no sense to stay,” CNN reported.
Meanwhile, after reports of missile firing into a northern border region, Ukraine accused Russia of dragging Belarus into the ongoing conflict in Kyiv.
“Missile strikes from the territory of Belarus are a largescale provocation of the Russian Federation in order to further involve Belarus in the war against Ukraine,” Defence Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate said, CNN reported.