Sergey Haydey (CNN)
Sergei Haidai, head of the Luhansk regional military administration, said 80% of his region was under Russian control. If Ukraine does not resist, the official said, “Russia will certainly not stop there and will continue.
Speaking to CNN’s Becky Anderson from an undisclosed location, Haidai agreed with the Russian description that the second phase of the war had begun, but warned that it was not yet a “complete and total invasion.”
“Certainly they (the Russians) are spreading a lot,” he said. “We have created our defense in many cities. They are trying to surround our troops, there are a lot of nasty things going on … but so far they have not succeeded. We are doing well to destroy their equipment. “
Haidai added: “We have a very serious situation here. The whole territory of Luhansk was shelled. There is no safe city … We understand that the Russian government will move forward and destroy everything in its path. So what we’re doing is trying to evacuate everyone as much as possible. “
The official appealed to other civilians to leave the eastern region of Ukraine as fighting intensified. He said that of the 350,000 people who lived on Luhansk’s Ukrainian territory before the war, about 70,000 remain today.
“Most people left with their own transport or with our national buses or volunteers. We have no idea when the humanitarian corridors will be created, but we are evacuating every day. The point is that Russia always violates agreements. The shelling, despite the quiet hours, is still going on, “he added.
Haidai went on to say that the shelling took place “without a break” in the area, destroying the electricity grid and all water supply systems. For the remaining 70,000, most of them live in bunkers, basements and shelters.
“This is the second month that all these people are living underground,” he said. “We are trying to give them some help, we are trying to provide them with sewerage and water and to make sure that they are not doing it. he died of starvation … there is hardly a stable gas supply, so the situation is quite desperate, “he added.
Asked to compare the situation in Luhansk with the besieged city of Mariupol – which has been facing a similar fate for weeks – Haidai said: “At least for us we can get help and in fact we can still evacuate people. But the bombing continues every day until nightfall, and in this respect it is very similar to Mariupol.
The military governor called on the West to provide more military equipment to help protect Ukraine’s skies and lands.
“We need aviation, air defense equipment, a lot of UAVs from the United States and long-range, heavy precision artillery,” he said. “I think recent events have shown that the much-vaunted Russian army is really not at zero, not what we thought, so I think it is possible that Ukraine’s armed forces, provided they have this kind of equipment, can actually they will win. “
When asked how he sees the end of the war, Haidai told CNN he was likely to end hostilities through a political agreement, but added that he found it difficult to trust the Russians.
“They lie all the time,” he said. “Everyone knows this. Nobody believes them. Everyone knows that the agreement with Russia is not worth the paper on which it is printed. Today, Russia is the enemy of the whole world, not just Ukraine. Their ambitions extend far beyond Ukraine.
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