Mr Haidai said: “There is shelling around the clock and unfortunately the Russian army has chosen the scorched earth tactics against the city of Severodonetsk: They are just systematically destroying the city. There is constant shelling everywhere. “
He added: “They are erasing Severodonetsk from the face of the earth.”
As dust settles on the battle of Mariupol, a Black Sea port city that fell into Russian hands last week after the last Ukrainian resistance fighters surrendered, troops were told they would face trial in a pro-Russian breakaway region.
Denis Pushilin, leader of the Kremlin-run Donetsk People’s Republic, said: “Azovstal prisoners are being held in the Donetsk People’s Republic.
“It is also planned to organize an international tribunal on the territory of the republic.”
The report of the Russian news agency Interfax does not specify what charges will be brought against the fighters.
Ukraine has agreed to surrender its position by clinging to Mariupol on the grounds that thousands of remaining fighters will be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war.
In 2012, Russian security services said they had thwarted a plot to assassinate Putin after election day.
Two suspected killers were arrested and tried in Ukraine as Ukrainian authorities then agreed to cooperate with their Russian counterparts. One man was extradited to Russia to serve a ten-year sentence, and the other spent two years in a Ukrainian prison before being released and going to fight pro-Kremlin separatists in eastern Ukraine.
A few years later, Adam Osmayev was wounded while his wife died in an apparent assassination attempt outside Kyiv.
In a 2017 documentary series about the Russian president, with whom he has met several times, US director Oliver Stone claims that Putin survived five assassination attempts.
Western officials have also questioned the apparent assassination attempt on the Russian president.
Mr Putin has maintained his isolation protocols for Covid to narrow down immediate access, a source added.
“Has anyone tried to do something like that? [an assassination attempt] This would be an extremely complex operation, “the official said.
“He firmly controls his inner circle, the country and the decisions that are made. Despite all the speculation about his health, President Putin is still making decisions. “
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