UK claims routes for civilians to leave Severodonetsk 'limited' due to destroyed bridges

Russian forces have started making efforts to advance south of Izium to advance deeper into Donetsk and encircle Severodonetsk from the north, the UK Defence Ministry said in the latest intelligence update. According to the intelligence update, the ways for Ukrainians to leave Severodonetsk have been "limited" as the bridges have been destroyed. In addition, it also highlighted that Russia's proposed route will take the Ukrainians inside Russian-occupied territory, Svatova.

According to the UK Defence Ministry, Ukrainian civilians trapped in Severodonetsk have likely been "suspicious" of making use of the proposed corridor. According to the intelligence, Russian and separatist officials since 14 June have been claiming about their efforts to set up humanitarian corridors to permit citizens to evacuate Severodonetsk. It further said that Russia has been declaring a "humanitarian corridor" as a method to manipulate the battle space and do forced transfer of people. "If trapped civilians don’t take up the offer of exiting via a corridor, Russian will likely claim justification in making less of a distinction between them and any Ukrainian military targets in the area," intel highlighted.

"Russia has precedent, both earlier in the Ukraine campaign and in Syria, of using unilaterally-declared ‘humanitarian’ corridors as a mechanism to manipulate the battlespace and impose the forced transfer of populations," the UK Defence Ministry said in the latest intelligence update.

UK offers training programme for Ukrainian soldiers 

Ever since the Russian offensive in Ukraine began, the UK government has been supporting Ukraine with defence and humanitarian aid. Amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the war-torn nation for the second time on Friday, 17 June. During his visit to Kyiv, he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and assured him of providing military assistance required by Ukraine against the Russian troops. Apart from these, UK PM Boris Johnson offered to launch a training programme for Ukrainian forces wherein 10,000 soldiers of Ukraine will be trained every 120 days. Boris Johnson said that the training programme will ensure that the Ukrainian armed forces have the resilience they require for becoming victorious in the fight. In the training programme, Ukrainian forces would be trained using "battle-proven British Army expertise," enabling them to accelerate their deployment and enhance their resistance amid the ongoing war with Russia. 

Image: AP