Civilians in Severedonetsk blame Ukraine for destruction
Russian forces have gained control of what is left of the city of Severodonetsk as they advance in the Donbas region of Ukraine, our correspondent on the ground Johnny Miller reports.
Severodonetsk, which has seen some of the fiercest clashes of the war so far, lies mostly in ruins, resembling a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
On the outskirts of the city one can see ruins of a grain silo.
Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the destruction of the city. However, eyewitnesses put the blame for the destruction on “sly” Ukrainian forces.
“Ukraine acted in a sly way. They would bring a howitzer here, fire and then leave. Then Russia would strike and they would say Russia is bombing civilians. They were occupying kindergartens and would fire from there,” a local resident told Miller who visited the war-torn city.
Another local resident said Ukrainian troops occupied local homes and fired shots from them. “They made them sit in the basement and then took over their flats. They put mortars on the roofs and fired. We don’t know what Russia did. We didn’t see them until we returned.”
In the meantime, Russia says the Kiev forces shoot rockets at and shell the infrastructure in the eastern territories it flees from.
While the focus of the war, now in its fifth month, has moved to Ukraine’s eastern Donbas, Russian forces have been striking cities elsewhere in the country with missiles and rockets.
As the conflict continues to rage across various parts of Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered military units to intensify operations to prevent Ukrainian strikes on territories in eastern Ukraine and other areas in the hands of Russia, according to a statement from the ministry.
“The Russian defense ministry gave the necessary instructions to ramp up the actions of groups in all operational areas in order to exclude the possibility of the Kiev regime launching massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of settlements across Donbas and other regions,” said the statement.
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