Serhi Heyde, the head of the Luhansk region’s military administration, said about 800 people were hiding in several bomb shelters under the Azot chemical factory in Severodnetsk, the target of Russian missile strikes.
Headey told CNN on Thursday that local residents have sought refuge in Soviet-era bomb shelters under the factory.
“There are locals out there who were told to leave town,” Heyde said. “But they refused. There are children too, but not many of them.”
In a separate update on Thursday, regional Ukrainian officials said the Russians fired again at the Azot factory and “hit an administrative building and a warehouse where methanol was stored,” although it is unclear how much methanol there. was left.
Ukrainians still maintain control of the Severodnetsk industrial area, the statement said, adding that one of the remaining parts of the city has not been taken by Russia.
“Most of Severodnetsk”, one of the last cities to be held in Luhansk, is taken over by Russia, heyday said earlier,
Heyde said a Russian airstrike hit a tank of nitric acid at the Azot factory on Tuesday. A thick orange cloud of smoke was visible from the area in the images from that day. But Heyday said there was no danger to the people taking refuge under the factory.
“Thank God nothing was in danger to the people,” Heyday told CNN on Thursday. “As (the cloud) went up and went all at once, there is no fatal danger.”
Heyde said the factory is privately owned, and the owners say there are only small amounts of chemicals left in the plant.
Heyde said that the factory is not important from a military point of view, so “Azot is certainly not Azovstal” – referring to the steel plant. In Mariupol, which Russia took after a week-long siege,