Ukraine says lost control of Severodonetsk village amid Russia's advances
Ukraine has admitted to losing control of a village adjacent to the key industrial city of Severodonetsk, which has been the flashpoint of fierce battles between the Ukrainian and Russian forces in recent weeks.
"Unfortunately, we do not control Metyolkine anymore and the enemy continues to build up its reserves," the Lugansk Regional Governor Sergiy Gaiday said in a statement on Monday.
The city’s chief administrator Oleksandr Stryuk also confirmed on Ukrainian television later on Monday that Russian troops had taken control of most of the city’s residential areas.
"If we talk about the whole city, still more than a third is controlled by our armed forces. Russians control the rest," Stryuk remarked, noting there are round-the-clock street battles underway and that Ukrainian forces are regularly being shelled.
"The enemy is throwing more and more manpower into the offensive, to storm the city and push out our soldiers," he added, referring to Russia's military operation in the country to secure its borders from what it has described as the threat of eastern expansion of the US-led NATO military alliance.
Gaiday also admitted that the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk -- where hundreds of civilians are reportedly being sheltered -- was being "constantly" shelled by Russian forces.
It came amid reports that the US and its European allies are preparing for a lengthy war in Ukraine at the cost of “a global recession and mounting hunger” as the Biden administration struggles to avert a Russian victory by surging military aid to Kiev.
Meanwhile, Russia's seizure of the key Ukrainian village with a pre-war population of nearly 1,000 people marks the country’s latest gain around Severodonetsk, where Moscow's troops have encountered tough resistance from the Western-backed Kiev forces.
Russian forces have gradually advanced toward the eastern Donbas region, where they focused their military operation after deciding to withdraw their troops from areas around the capital Kiev at the beginning of their military action in Ukraine.
Russia’s defense ministry also declared on Sunday that its Iskander missiles had destroyed weaponry recently supplied to Kiev by Western countries in Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, northwest of Luhansk.
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