Ukrainian authorities said today, Sunday, that Russian forces blew up a bridge linking the city of Severodonetsk in the Luhansk region to a neighboring city, in light of the intensification of street fighting inside the city, two-thirds of which Russia controls.
On the other hand, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russian President Vladimir Putin's ambition goes beyond Ukrainian territory.
The governor of eastern Ukraine's Lugansk region, Sergey Gaidai, stated that the Russians had destroyed a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets river linking Severodonetsk and its twin city of Lysekhansk on the other side of the river, cutting off a possible evacuation route for civilians.
After the bridge was blown up, only one of the three bridges connecting the two cities remains, reducing the number of routes that can be used to evacuate civilians, or the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces to positions on the western side of the river.
The head of the Severodonetsk administration, Oleksandr Stryuk, said in televised statements that a little more than a third of the city is still under the control of Ukrainian forces, while the Russians control two-thirds of the city.
Street war
Today, Sunday, the governor of Lugansk region said that fighting is still going on between Ukrainian and Russian forces from street to street in Severodonetsk.
He added that the Ukrainian forces still controlled an industrial area and an Azot chemical factory in which 800 civilians were sheltering.
The military administration in Lugansk said that the Russian army is intensively bombing the industrial area of the city, where Ukrainian forces are holed up.
Pro-Russian forces in the Luhansk region, training on the British anti-tank missile "NLaw" seized from the Ukrainian army, which Ukraine obtained as help from Britain.
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In the neighboring city of Lysichansk, Ukrainian authorities said that a woman was killed in a Russian bombing that also destroyed 4 homes and a shopping mall.
Severodonetsk is the last city in Lugansk, Donbass region, still under Ukraine's control, and losing it would be a major strategic blow.
The victory of the Russians on this front would push them a major step towards one of the stated goals of Russian President Vladimir Putin in what he calls a "special military operation", which is the control of the entire Donbass region, most of which is controlled by pro-Moscow separatists.
Mariupol Developments
In the port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine, the pro-Russian port administration said that the port was ready to receive and export goods.
At the end of last month, the first cargo ship left the port of Mariupol since Russia completed its control of the city, and the ship transported a shipment of minerals from eastern Ukraine to Russia, and Kyiv described this shipment as looting of mineral products and grain.
Russian warships sail inside the port of Mariupol, southeastern Ukraine (Anatolia)
Also in Mariupol, Maxim Gorin, the former commander of the Azov battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard, said on Sunday that the bodies of dozens of Ukrainian fighters who were killed during the siege of the Azovstal Steel Complex are still waiting to be recovered.
Gorin added that under the terms of a recent exchange, about 220 bodies of those killed in the Azovstal complex have already been sent to Kyiv, but there are still a similar number of bodies in Mariupol.
The same spokesman stated that a third of the dead were from the Azov battalion, while the others belonged to border patrol, navy and police.
On the other hand, the Russian "Interfax" news agency reported today, Sunday, that the Russian forces launched "Cruise" missiles to destroy a large warehouse containing American and European weapons in the Ternopil region, western Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that "Caliber missiles were launched from the sea, destroying near the city of Shurkiv a large depot of anti-tank missile systems, man-portable air defense systems and missiles supplied by the United States and European countries to the Kyiv system."
The governor of the Ternopil region, Volodymyr Trosh, said that the Russian attack on Saturday evening targeted the city of Shurkiv, partially destroying a military facility and buildings, and wounding 22 people, including civilians.
A local official said there were no weapons stored in the buildings targeted by the Russian bombing.
NATO and wheat
On the political front, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, in a joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, that Russian President Putin's ambition goes beyond Ukraine's borders, adding that the alliance is not part of the ongoing war in Ukraine, but "provides support for Ukraine to be able to from defending itself."
Stoltenberg stressed that the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance "will increase its strength, and send a message to Putin that the approach of intimidation will not work."
On a related topic, Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister Dmytro Senek said that his country has established two grain export corridors through Poland and Romania to avoid a global food crisis in light of the slowdown in supply chains.
Senek added on the sidelines of the Asian Security Summit in Singapore that Ukraine is in talks with the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) to add a third corridor, blaming Russia for stopping grain exports through the Black Sea because of its war on his country.
In the same context, Anadolu Agency quoted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying that he will discuss next week with his Russian counterparts Putin and Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky about the nature of the steps to be taken regarding the passage related to the transport of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.
Ukraine is the fourth largest exporter of grain in the world, and says that there are about 30 million tons of grain stored in the lands under its control and is trying to ship it by road, river or by train, in light of the inability to ship it through Ukrainian ports due to the ongoing war.