{"id":1512954,"date":"2022-06-13T07:19:33","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T11:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1512954"},"modified":"2022-06-13T07:19:38","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T11:19:38","slug":"russia-destroys-bridge-over-ukrainian-river-cutting-off-escape-route","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/russia-destroys-bridge-over-ukrainian-river-cutting-off-escape-route\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Destroys Bridge Over Ukrainian River, Cutting Off Escape Route"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frussia-destroys-bridge-over-ukrainian-river-cutting-off-escape-route%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1512954&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>By Natalia Zinets and Maria Starkova<\/p>\n<p>KYIV\/LVIV (Reuters) -Russian forces have blown up a bridge linking the embattled Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk to another city across the river, cutting off a possible evacuation route for civilians, local officials said on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Sievierodonetsk has become the epicenter of the battle for control over Ukraine&#8217;s eastern Donbas region. Parts of the city have been pulverized in some of the bloodiest fighting since the Kremlin unleashed its invasion on Feb. 24.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The key tactical goal of the occupiers has not changed: they are pressing in Sievierodonetsk, severe fighting is ongoing there &#8211; literally for every meter,&#8221; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, adding that Russia&#8217;s military was trying to deploy reserve forces to the Donbas.<\/p>\n<p>Zelenskiy said the image of a 12-year-old injured in a Russian strike was now the enduring worldwide face of Russia. &#8220;These very facts will underscore the way in which Russia is seen by the world,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Not Peter the Great, not Lev Tolstoy, but children injured and killed in Russian attacks,&#8221; he said, in an apparent reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin&#8217;s remarks last week comparing Moscow&#8217;s military campaign to Russian emperor Peter the Great&#8217;s 18th century conquest of lands held by Sweden.<\/p>\n<p>Ukrainian and Russian forces were still fighting street-by-street in Sievierodonetsk on Sunday, the governor of Luhansk province, Serhiy Gaidai, said.<\/p>\n<p>Russian forces have taken most of the city but Ukrainian troops remain in control of an industrial area and the Azot chemical plant where hundreds of civilians are sheltering. &#8220;About 500 civilians remain on the territory of the Azot plant in Sievierodonetsk, 40 of them are children. Sometimes the military manages to evacuate someone,&#8221; Gaidai said.<\/p>\n<p>But the Russians had destroyed a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River linking Sievierodonetsk with its twin city of Lysychansk, Gaidai said.<\/p>\n<p>That left just one of three bridges still standing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If after new shelling the bridge collapses, the city will truly be cut off. There will be no way of leaving Sievierodonetsk in a vehicle,&#8221; Gaidai said, noting the lack of a cease-fire agreement and no agreed evacuation corridors.<\/p>\n<p>In Lysychansk, Russian shelling killed a six-year-old, Gaidai said.<\/p>\n<p>Reuters could not independently confirm that account.<\/p>\n<p>STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS<\/p>\n<p>After being forced to scale back its initial goals following its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has turned its attention to expanding control in the Donbas, where pro-Russian separatists have held territory since 2014.<\/p>\n<p>The fall of Sievierodonetsk, in the last pocket of Ukrainian land held in the strategic Luhansk region, would move Russia a big step closer to one of the stated goals of what Putin calls a &#8220;special military operation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, Russian cruise missiles destroyed a large depot containing U.S. and European weapons in western Ukraine&#8217;s Ternopil region, Russia&#8217;s Interfax agency reported.<\/p>\n<p>Ternopil&#8217;s governor said rockets fired from the Black Sea at the city of Chortkiv had partly destroyed a military facility and injured 22 people. A local official said there were no weapons stored there.<\/p>\n<p>Reuters could not independently confirm the differing accounts.<\/p>\n<p>Moscow has criticised the United States and other nations for sending Ukraine weapons, threatening to strike new targets if the West supplied long-range missiles.<\/p>\n<p>Ukrainian leaders recently have renewed pleas for more heavy weapons. On Sunday, the Ukrainian general staff said on Facebook that General Valeriy Zaluzhny, the head of Ukraine&#8217;s armed forces, had spoken to General Mark Milley, the top U.S. military officer, and reiterated his request for more heavy artillery systems.<\/p>\n<p>Russian forces were firing mortars and artillery south and southwest of Sievierodonetsk, according to Ukraine&#8217;s general staff. But it said Ukrainian forces had repulsed Russian attempts to advance towards some communities.<\/p>\n<p>Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.<\/p>\n<p>Putin says Russia&#8217;s actions aim to disarm and &#8220;denazify&#8221; Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies call it an unprovoked war of aggression to capture territory.<\/p>\n<p>Also on Sunday, the leader of the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk region in the Donbas said there was no reason to pardon two British nationals sentenced to death last week after being captured while fighting for Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>A court in Donetsk on Thursday found Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner &#8211; and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun &#8211; guilty of &#8220;mercenary activities&#8221; seeking to overthrow the republic.<\/p>\n<p>Britain says Aslin and Pinner were regular soldiers exempt under the Geneva Conventions from prosecution for participation in hostilities. Aslin&#8217;s family said he and Pinner &#8220;are not, and never were, mercenaries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Separately, the family of a former British soldier, Jordan Gatley, said on social media he was killed fighting for Ukraine in Sievierodonetsk.<\/p>\n<p>(Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Pavel Polityuk, Additional reporting by Reuters bureauxWriting by Kim Coghill, Angus MacSwan and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by William Mallard, Frances Kerry and Diane Craft)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Natalia Zinets and Maria StarkovaKYIV\/LVIV (Reuters) -Russian forces have blown up a bridge linking the embattled Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk to another city across the river, cutting off a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1512954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1512954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1512954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1512954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1512954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}