Ukraine struggles to evacuate civilians

KYIV, June 15 (Reuters/AFP): Ukraine said its forces were still trying to evacuate civilians from embattled Sievierodonetsk on Tuesday after Russia destroyed the last bridge to the devastated eastern city.
The Ukrainian defenders were holding out against the Russians in a battle which has seen ground change hands several times over the past few weeks.
"Russian troops are trying to storm the city, but the military is holding firm, Sievierodonetsk's Ukrainian mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said.
He described the situation as "very difficult".
Although the last bridge over the Siverskyi Donets river had been felled, evacuations were still being carried out "every minute when there is a lull and there is a possibility of transportation," Stryuk said. "Every possible chance is taken."
Ukraine says more than 500 civilians are trapped inside Azot, a chemical factory where its forces have resisted weeks of Russian bombardment and assaults that have reduced much of the city to ruins.
Regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said: "The shelling is so powerful that people can no longer stand it in the shelters, their psychological state is on the edge. The last few days, the residents are finally ready to go."
Russia said it would give the Ukrainian fighters holed up in the chemical plant a chance to surrender on Wednesday morning. Fighters should "stop their senseless resistance and lay down their arms" from 8 am Moscow time (0500 GMT), Interfax news agency quoted Mikhail Mizintsev, head of Russia's National Defence Management Centre, as saying.
Civilians would be let out through a "humanitarian corridor", he said.
Both sides claim to have inflicted huge casualties in the fighting over the city, Russia's main target in its battle for the east of the country after it failed to capture the capital Kyiv in March, in the early weeks of its invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine still holds Lysychansk, Sievierodonetsk's twin city on higher ground on the western bank of the river. But with all the bridges now cut, its forces acknowledge a threat that they could be encircled in Sievierodonetsk.
Damien Megrou, spokesperson for a unit of foreign volunteers helping to defend Sievierodonetsk, said there was a risk of leaving "a large pocket of Ukrainian defenders cut off from the rest of the Ukrainian troops" - as in Mariupol, the Black Sea port that surrendered last month after months of Russian siege.
The battle for Sievierodonetsk - a city of barely more than 100,000 people before the war - is now the biggest fight in Ukraine as the conflict has shifted into a war of attrition.
Kyiv has said it is losing 100-200 soldiers killed each day, with hundreds more wounded.
Russia gives no regular figures of its own losses but Western countries say they have been massive, as Moscow has committed the bulk of its firepower to delivering one of President Vladimir Putin's stated objectives: forcing Kyiv to cede the full territory of two eastern provinces.
Momentum in Sievierodonetsk has shifted several times over the past few weeks - with Russia concentrating its overwhelming artillery firepower on urban districts to obliterate resistance, then sending in ground troops vulnerable to counter-attacks.
NATO chief urges 'more heavy
weapons' for Ukraine
Western countries must send Ukraine more heavy weaponry as it battles Russia's advance in the east of the country, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday.
"Yes, Ukraine should have more heavy weapons," Stoltenberg told a press conference in The Hague after meeting the leaders of seven European NATO allies ahead of a key summit.
Stoltenberg said NATO was already "stepping up" deliveries and officials would be meeting in Brussels on Wednesday to coordinate further support including heavy weaponry.
"Because they absolutely depend on that to be able to stand up against the brutal Russian invasion," Stoltenberg said.
Ukraine has repeatedly begged for heavy weapons from the West, criticising some European leaders for failing to deliver arms that Kyiv says it needs to push back Moscow's forces.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Danish premier Mette Frederiksen were hosting Stoltenberg and the leaders of Poland, Romania, Latvia, Portugal and Belgium ahead of a crunch NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki lamented that the West was "not doing enough" to support his country's neighbour Ukraine.
"We have not done enough to defend Ukraine, to support the Ukrainian people, to support their freedom and sovereignty," he told the press conference.