Sievierodonetsk Is On Risk Being Like Mariupol, Ukraine Needs 500 Tanks, 1.000 Howitzers And 1.000 Drones From The West

JAKARTA - Ukraine has issued an urgent call for more arms deliveries to help defend Sievierodonetsk, which Kyiv sees as key to fighting in the eastern Donbas region and the overall course of the war, which is now in its fourth month.

Ukraine's military command said in a brief note that Russian forces were trying to take complete control of Sievierodonetsk, but that attacks on Ukrainian positions southeast of the city had failed.

"The fighting is so fierce that fighting not just for one street, but for one tall building can last for days," said the governor of the Lugansk region, which includes Sievierodonetsk. Gaidai, reported by Reuters on June 14.

Russian artillery fire hit the Azot chemical plant, where hundreds of civilians were sheltering, he added.

Meanwhile, Damien Magrou, spokesman for the International Legion for Defense of Ukraine which has troops in Sievierodonetsk said the situation there risks becoming like Mariupol, "with a large pocket of Ukrainian defenders cut off from the rest of the Ukrainian forces."

"This is one of the reasons why it is so important that our Western partners deliver long-range artillery as quickly as possible," he said.

Separately, Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Mykhailo Podolyak listed equipment he said was needed from Western allies for the balance of heavy weapons, including 1.000 howitzers, 500 tanks, and 1.000 drones.

Meanwhile, Russia's RIA news agency quoted a spokesman for pro-Moscow separatists, Eduard Basurin, as saying Ukrainian troops had been blockaded in Sievierodonetsk, the choice was to surrender or die.

Ukrainian reports of civilians trapped in an industrial plant echo the fall of Mariupol last month, where hundreds of seriously injured Ukrainian civilians and soldiers were trapped for weeks at the Azovstal steel plant.

To note, after failing to capture the capital Kyiv following the February 24 invasion, Moscow focused on expanding control in the Donbas, which consists of neighboring Lugansk and Donetsk.

Here, pro-Russian separatists have controlled territory since 2014, while also trying to seize more Black Ukraine territory. seashore.

Along the front in the Donbas, fighting poses a new threat as the weather warms, with shelling and rocket fire burning fields and destroying mature crops.

Russia denies targeting civilians in what it calls "special operations" to restore Russia's security and "denazify" its neighbors.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and its Western allies have called this a baseless pretext for an invasion that has killed thousands of civilians and raised fears of a wider conflict in Europe.

As a result, more than 5 million people have been displaced by the invasion that began on February 24, with millions more threatened by the global energy and food crisis due to the disruption of gas, oil, and grain supplies from Russia and Ukraine.