In Severodonetsk, a Ukrainian city conquered by the Russian army and partially destroyed after weeks of fighting, the few inhabitants live without electricity or regular access to food, noted AFP journalists.
AFP was able to visit this city in the Ukrainian Donbass and its twin, Lyssytchansk, on Tuesday as part of a press trip organized by the Russian army.
These two cities fell in late June and early July respectively, allowing Russia to claim the conquest of the entire Lugansk region, which Moscow considers an independent state called the Lugansk People’s Republic.
The massive concrete letters forming the name Severodonetsk at the entrance to this city were immediately repainted in white-blue-red, the colors of the Russian flag. And a red flag, struck with the hammer and sickle, the banner of the USSR, was hoisted over the monument.
In the city and its surroundings, apartment buildings with blackened facades riddled with projectile holes are aplenty.
Here, the streets are deserted. There are only rare inhabitants living without electricity and without a regular supply of water and food.
After taking the Lugansk region, Russia is now aiming to conquer the entire territory of the Donetsk region. There too, Moscow recognizes a separatist power.
President Vladimir Putin, in ordering the assault on Ukraine on February 24, claimed to want to “denazify” and “demilitarize” a regime described as Russophobic.
Ukraine and the West, for their part, believe that the Kremlin is seeking to satisfy imperialist ambitions to reestablish its domination over lands that were under the control of the USSR and Russian Tsars.