By YURAS KARMANAU
Associated Press
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) -- Russian troops control about 80% of the fiercely contested eastern city of Sievierodonetsk and have destroyed all three bridges leading out of it but Ukrainians were still trying to evacuate the wounded, a regional official said Tuesday.
Serhiy Haidai, governor of the eastern Luhansk region, acknowledged that a mass evacuation of civilians from Sievierodonetsk now was "simply not possible" due to the relentless shelling and fighting. Ukrainian forces have been pushed to the industrial outskirts of the city because of "the scorched earth method and heavy artillery the Russians are using," he said.
Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Defense Management Center, is accused by Ukraine of human rights violations while commanding troops during the long siege of Mariupol, Ukraine's key port on the Sea of Azov, which has been taken over by the Russians.
Russian forces in the past few weeks have pressed hard to capture Ukraine's eastern industrial Donbas area, which borders Russia and is made up of the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said Tuesday the military had only received around 10% of the Western weapons it had requested "to create parity with the Russian army."
With the conflict now in its fourth month, the battle of Donbas could dictate the course of the war.
If Russia prevails, Ukraine will lose not only land but perhaps the bulk of its most capable military forces, opening the way for Moscow to grab more territory and dictate its terms to Kyiv.
A Russian failure, however, could lay the grounds for a Ukrainian counteroffensive -- and possible political upheaval for the Kremlin.
U.S. President Joe Biden says he's working closely with European partners to get 20 million tons of Ukrainian grain, currently blocked from leaving Black Sea ports due to Russia's invasion, onto international markets.
He said Tuesday the plan would involve building temporary storage silos on Ukraine's borders to deal with the problem of the different rail gauges that Ukrainian and European railway systems use.
"Ukraine has a system, like Russia has, a rail gauge that is different than the gauge of the rest of the tracks in Europe," Biden said. "So we're going to build silos, temporary silos, in the borders of Ukraine, including in Poland. So we can transfer it from those cars into those silos, into cars in Europe and get it out to the ocean and get it across the world. But it's taking time."
Ukraine is one of the world's biggest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil. The lack of Ukrainian grain on world markets is threatening to exacerbate food shortages and inflation across the world. Many African and Middle Eastern countries rely heavily on Ukrainian grain and could face problems feeding their people without it.