Russia is now in control of much of Severodonetsk, the epicenter of the battle for Donbas region.

Russian forces now control most of Severodonetsk, the epicenter of the bloody battle for Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Street clashes continued on Saturday in the eastern city, where Russian soldiers and Ukrainian troops are still locked in battle.

“The situation is still difficult. The fighting continues, but unfortunately most of the city is under Russian control. Some positional battles are taking place in the streets,” said Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region, which forms donbas along with the neighboring Donetsk region.

Haidai said on Saturday Ukraine was still in control of the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk, where 800 people are reportedly sheltering, after a Russian-backed official claimed Ukrainian fighters were also trapped there.

“The story about the blockade of the Azot plant is a complete lie spread by Russian propagandists,” Haidi said.

Rodion Miroshnik, a Russian-backed leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, said on Saturday that as many as 400 Ukrainian fighters were taking shelter in the factory compound, hiding alongside civilians in bomb shelters, and that negotiations for their surrender and security evacuation of civilians was ongoing.

“The fighters are trying to make demands, namely to allow them to leave the territory of the chemical plant together with the hostages and to provide them with a corridor to go to Lysychansk. Such demands are unacceptable and will not be taken into account,” Miroshnik said.

As Russian forces advance their control of key regions in Ukraine and the number of civilian casualties mounts, Zelensky has remained adamant that Ukraine will overcome Russia’s invasion.

Zelensky said Ukraine will “definitely prevail” in its war against Russia. He said, “This is the confrontation between the possible, which we and many people in the world need, and the impossible, which Russia is so desperately fighting for”.

He added that Russia considered his country its “colony” and was doing everything to make it impossible for Ukraine to “exist freely and independently.”

Zelensky said, “Russia wants to make it impossible for our people to use their land, resources and water in their best interest. Russia wants to steal it, and this active plundering of the territory it has (managed to) occupy, they are taking literally everything”.

“It is on the battlefield in Ukraine that the future rules of this world are decided along with the limits of what is possible”, he added.

“Let’s save the whole world from going back to the times when everything was decided based on the so-called right of power and when certain peoples and their ideas, and many nations, did not matter”.

Ukraine’s president also urged leaders to do whatever it takes to “break the ability of Russia and any other country in the world to block the seas and destroy freedom of navigation.”

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES