The head of the Luhansk regional military administration says Russian troops control most of the city of Syevyerodonetsk but fears that Ukrainian forces will be surrounded are unfounded.
Serhiy Hayday told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service on May 31 that the Ukrainian forces were able to maneuver.
“The military is calmly defending its positions,” he said, adding that the city was 90 percent damaged and most of the damage was “practically irrepairable.”
Hayday also said that Russian troops were not able to completely capture the Luhansk region, which the Ukrainian military has been defending for four months.
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Hayday said earlier on May 31 that part of Syevyerodonetsk was “already controlled by the Russian Army” and Russian troops were “gradually moving toward downtown.” Syevyerodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk and district administration chief Roman Vlasenko confirmed that Russian troops controlled about half the city.
Hayday also said a Russian air strike hit a tank containing nitric acid at a chemical plant in Syevyerodonetsk. He warned remaining residents of the city not to leave their homes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the air strike was “just crazy” but said it was “no longer surprising that for the Russian military, for Russian commanders, for Russian soldiers, any madness is absolutely acceptable.”
A pro-Moscow separatist representative said the tank had “exploded” on territory controlled by Ukrainian forces.
“At the Azot chemical plant, a container with chemicals was blown up. Preliminarily, it is nitric acid,” Rodion Mironchik, a representative of Russia-backed separatists who call the territory they control the Luhansk People’s Republic, said on Telegram.
Zelenskiy also reported that Ukrainian forces have had some success near the southern city of Kherson and are advancing in parts of the Kharkiv region to the east of Kyiv.
“Our defenders are showing the utmost courage and remain masters of the situation at the front despite the fact the Russian army has a significant advantage in terms of equipment and numbers,” he said in his nightly address.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on May 31 that up to 12,000 civilians remained trapped and in need of aid in Syevyerodonetsk.
“I am horrified to see Syevyerodonetsk, the thriving city where we had our operational headquarters, become the epicenter of yet another chapter of the brutal war in Ukraine,” NRC chief Jan Egeland said.
“We fear that up to 12,000 civilians remain caught in cross fire in the city, without sufficient access to water, food, medicine, or electricity. The near-constant bombardment is forcing civilians to seek refuge in bomb shelters and basements, with precious few opportunities for those trying to escape.”
British intelligence confirmed on May 31 that heavy shelling continued in Syevyerodonetsk and that street fighting was taking place.
“Progress has been slow but gains are being held,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its regular intelligence bulletin, adding that Moscow’s political goal appears to remain controlling and occupying in full the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
But British intelligence cautioned that, while achieving greater success locally compared to the early days of the war, Moscow’s gains came at the cost of massing forces and fires in a relatively small area. “This forces Russia to accept risk elsewhere in occupied territory,” the bulletin said.
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As Moscow’s advance on Syevyerodonetsk increased in intensity, Russian forces also shelled parts of Ukraine’s northeast.
“The situation in Donbas remains extremely difficult. The Russian Army is trying to gather overwhelming forces in certain areas to put more and more pressure on our defenders. There, in Donbas, the maximum combat power of the Russian Army is now gathered,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly address late on May 30.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said on May 31 that it will hand over the bodies of 152 Ukrainian soldiers found at the Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol, which is now under Moscow’s control.
The ministry said its troops found 152 bodies of dead militants and servicemen of Ukraine’s armed forces that it claims were stored inside a cooling unit and that four mines were found underneath the bodies.
“The Russian side plans to hand over the bodies of Ukrainian militants and servicemen found on the territory of the Azovstal plant to representatives in Ukraine,” the ministry added.
On May 31, a Moscow-backed separatist leader in eastern Ukraine said a ship had left the Ukrainian port of Mariupol for the first time since Russia took the strategic Sea of Azov city following months of fierce fighting with Ukrainian defenders.
Denis Pushilin said the ship, carrying metal, was headed east to Russia. “Today 2,500 tons of sheet-metal rolls left Mariupol port, the ship is heading to Rostov[-on-Don],” Pushilin wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine said the shipment of metal to Russia from Mariupol amounted to looting.
On May 30, EU leaders agreed to ban most Russian oil imports. They also agreed to the removal of Russia’s Sberbank from the SWIFT messaging system, a ban on three more Russian state-owned broadcasters, and sanctions against individuals responsible for war crimes.
The EU has rolled out five packages of sanctions against Russia since its troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, but an agreement on oil sanctions proved elusive because so many countries depend on Russian crude.
