Ukrainian authorities say they are continuing to evacuate civilians from Sievierodonetsk during every “quiet” moment, after the three main bridges out of the eastern city were destroyed by Russian shelling.
As fighting raged on for control of the city, local authorities said they still had ways to evacuate people, though it was not immediately clear what route the Ukrainian military was using.
“The ways to connect with the city are quite difficult, but they exist,” Oleksandr Struik, the head of the Sievierodonetsk military administration, told Ukrainian television, adding that evacuations were taking place “every minute when it is quiet there, or there is a possibility of transportation”.
“Russian troops are trying to storm the city, but the military is holding firm,” he added. Russia is believed to control about 70% of the city.
Struik said about 500 civilians continued to shelter in the city’s Azot chemical plant, where it is feared a scenario similar to that in the southern port city of Mariupol, where hundreds of people were trapped for weeks in the Azovstal steelworks, could play out.
A senior Russian commander said that Russian forces were ready to open up a humanitarian corridor on Wednesday morning to evacuate civilians from the Azot plant to Svatove, a city north of Sievierodonetsk controlled by pro-Russian forces.
Col Gen Mikhail Mizintsev, the officer who was in charge of the devastating siege of Mariupol, said Ukraine asked the Russian side to help organise a humanitarian corridor to Lysychansk, a neighbouring city controlled by Ukraine on the other side of the Siverskyi Donets River from Sievierodonetsk, but that Russia’s defence ministry regarded Ukraine’s request as an attempt to save its encircled units.
Fighters should “stop their senseless resistance and lay down arms” from 8am Moscow time (5am GMT), Mizintsev told the Interfax news agency late on Tuesday.
Ukraine has not yet commented on the reported humanitarian corridor. It has previously accused Russia of violating ceasefire agreements.
The Russian army has shifted the bulk of its military efforts to capturing Sievierodonetsk in its attempt to take full control of Luhansk and Donetsk, collectively known as Donbas. Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk, told Ukrainian television on Tuesday that two more Russian battalion tactical groups had been moved into the area.
The fight for Sievierodonetsk is turning into one of the war’s bloodiest battles and is seen as a potential turning point in Russia’s advances in the Donbas.
During his nightly address on Monday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said: “We are dealing with absolute evil. And we have no choice but to move forward and free our territory. The human cost of this battle is very high for us. It is simply terrifying.”
Several Ukrainian officials have called on the west to supply Ukraine with heavier weapons while the country’s commander in chief, Valery Zaluzhnyi, said Russian forces had a tenfold advantage in firepower.
Capturing Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk would give Russia full control over Luhansk as well as the possibility to focus its offensive on Donetsk. In a briefing on Monday, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces were “creating conditions” for offensives on the cities of Sloviansk, Lyman, Yampil and Siversk in Donetsk.
Pro-Russian separatists and Russian news agencies reported that several Ukrainian artillery strikes on Donetsk city – which Russia controls – killed a child and injured several others.
Answering a question from Danish journalists on Tuesday, Zelenskiy said Ukraine “wasn’t interested” in targeting Russian civilians. “We are not terrorists to shell civilian areas. We are normal, healthy people.”
Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian military had enough ammunition and weapons but needed more long-range weapons. “What we don’t have enough of are the weapons that really hits the range that we need to reduce the advantage of the Russian Federation’s equipment.”
Pointing to the alleged strikes on Donetsk city, Denis Pushilin, the leader of the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk, said the proxy state would turn to Russia for more military help. Asked about Pushilin’s request, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists that the “protection” of the two breakaway republics was the main goal of Russia’s “special military operation”.
In the same call with journalists, Peskov said British authorities had not contacted Moscow regarding the fate of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner who, along with Moroccan national Saaudun Brahim, were sentenced to death last week for “mercenary activities” by the court of the self-declared Donetsk republic.
“They should address the authorities of the country that pronounced the sentences, and that is not the Russian Federation,” Peskov said, adding he was “sure” the Russian-backed separatist officials in Donbas would be willing to listen to an appeal from Britain.
The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, on Tuesday said she would do “whatever was necessary” to secure the release of the two British nationals who have been sentenced to death in what international human rights groups have called a “show trial” designed to exert pressure on the UK.
