Russian-held Popasna in Ukraine is a ghost town after end of siege
POPASNA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Two months after falling to Russian troops, the japanese Ukrainian city of Popasna that when was dwelling to twenty,000 residents has changed into a ghost city with little signal of life.
Ukrainian troops retreated from Popasna in Could after Russian forces launched an offensive alongside most of Ukraine’s japanese flank, with intense assaults and shelling across the city within the Luhansk area.
On a go to to Popasna on Thursday by a Reuters reporter, the city appeared abandoned, with practically all condo buildings both destroyed or closely broken. Barren streets bore no signal of individuals or animals.
A former resident, Vladimir Odarchenko, stood inside his broken dwelling and surveyed the particles strewn throughout the ground.
“I do not know what I will do. The place to dwell? I do not know,” he instructed Reuters. “Summer season is ok, I can hire a tiny condo, if I find the money for.”
Russia has continued to pound japanese Ukraine in an effort to realize management of the Donbas area. Moscow earlier this month captured Luhansk province, which makes up a part of the Donbas.
Russia launched what it referred to as its “particular army operation” towards Ukraine on Feb. 24, which the West says is an unprovoked struggle of aggression.
The battle has laid waste to Ukrainian cities and induced 5.2 million folks to flee the nation, in keeping with the United Nations.
(Reporting by Reuters, Modifying by Deepa Babington)
