Russia says Ukraine disrupted effort to let civilians escape plant in battered city

LONDON (Reuters) -Russia’s defence ministry on Wednesday accused Ukrainian forces of disrupting efforts to allow civilians to escape from a chemical plant in an eastern Ukrainian city where a battle has been raging for weeks.

Russian forces are trying to grind down Ukrainian resistance in the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, part of a wider push to drive Kyiv’s forces out of two separatist regions which Russia backs and has recognised as independent states.

Russian-backed separatists say up to 1,200 civilians may still be taking shelter in the sprawling Azot ammonia plant.

Moscow said it had opened a humanitarian corridor from the plant on Wednesday to allow civilians to escape to Russian-controlled territory. It accused Ukrainian troops of violating the ceasefire and effectively using civilians as human shields.

“There are no obstacles for civilians to leave … except for the decision in principle by the Kyiv authorities themselves,” the ministry said in a statement.

Reuters was unable to verify that claim. Ukraine has denied Russian claims that it uses civilians as human shields.

A day earlier, Russia said it dismissed a Ukrainian request for a humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians to Kyiv-controlled territory.

Rodion Miroshnik, an official in the Russian-backed self-styled separatist administration of the Luhansk People’s Republic, said earlier on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces in the plant numbered up to 2,000 people.

Ukraine says the number of civilians at the plant is closer to 500.

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that the main immediate reason for what he casts as a “special military operation” was to protect the Russian-speakers of Donbas from persecution and attack.

Ukraine and its Western backers say Russia is waging an unprovoked war against a sovereign state which is fighting for its existence. Kyiv says Russia’s claim of persecution of Russian-speakers is a baseless pretext for the invasion.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and David Ljunggren; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Toby Chopra)