Reportage

Sievierodonetsk, a week after the fall

At the entrance to Sievierodonetsk, the letters of the city are now surmounted by a red flag and a Russian flag.

© RFI/Anissa El Jabri

Text by: Anissa El Jabri Follow

3 mins

A week ago, Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, in the Donbass, was completely taken over by Russian and pro-Russian forces.

The Azot factory resisted for a long time but the fighters left or surrendered long before major damage.

The city is now almost emptied of its inhabitants.

RFI went there accompanied by pro-Russian Chechen forces.

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From our special correspondent in Sievierodonetsk,

In the offices of the Azot factory, reams of paper, an abandoned filing cabinet on a window, a table and chairs overturned.

The fragments of a hasty end.

In the old workshops, a smell that takes the nostrils, a mixture of persistent smoke, ash and oil spilled on the ground.

The silhouette of a calcined tank rises up in an embrasure.

Windows in buildings are often blown or broken.

There are still anti-tank mines on the ground mixed with twisted beams, scattered on a lawn eaten by black craters or on the bitumen of the paths which is beginning to be nibbled by thistles.

The Azot chemical plant did not know the fate of Azvostal in Mariupol, totally destroyed: there are still standing buildings, padlocked doors, intact tanks, huge pipes still wrapped and protected.

© RFI/Anissa El Jabri

In the offices of the Azot factory, the fragments of a hasty end: reams of paper, an abandoned filing cabinet on a window, an overturned table and chairs... © RFI/Anissa el Jabri

Damaged by the fighting, the Azot chemical plant did not however know the fate of Azvostal, flattened and totally destroyed in Mariupol: there are still standing buildings, padlocked doors, intact tanks, huge pipes still wrapped and protected.

And, absurd in this deserted industrial site, road signs.

They warn of heavy truck traffic or of a priority to be respected.

A red flag and a Russian flag now frame the name of the city

Outside the factory compound,

.

A week since the city changed hands: at the entrance, the large capital letters “Sievierodonetsk” are still painted in blue and yellow, but they are framed by a red flag and a Russian flag. 

This resident, whom we meet on a bicycle in the streets where we hear mainly the cry of crows, has not responded to repeated calls from the Ukrainian governor of the region, Serhiy Haidai, to evacuate as soon as possible.

From now on, his city will join the capital of the self-proclaimed republic already ruled by pro-Russian separatist forces.

“

he concedes. 

»

A regret certainly for this former worker of the Azot factory, but an assumed choice to wait for the arrival of Russian and pro-Russian forces.

“

, he says.

»

Awaits him new leaders, reconstruction, a job in this deserted city where people live today either in cellars or in tents.

Apti Alaoudinov, commander of the Chechen special forces: "We must liberate other territories from the yoke of Nazism"

Fighting continues around Lyssytchansk, the last major city yet to be conquered by Russians and pro-Russians in the Luhansk region, one of the two provinces of the Donbass industrial basin, which Moscow intends to fully control.

At the forefront of the fighting in particular, the commander of the Chechen special forces Apti Alaoudinov, very close to the leader of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, from whom our special correspondent was able to hear the word:

"

," he says.

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