Ukraine calls for cease-fire to evacuate civilians from Sievierodonetsk chemical plant | DW News

A Russian air strike killed four people in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Lysychansk, local residents said. The strike on a cultural center killed a mother and daughter, as well as a young man and a bedridden woman who had moved there to shelter from her home in Severodonetsk.

The bombing on Thursday sparked a fire that raged through Stalin-era Diamant Palace of Culture overnight and was still burning on Friday. Police said that around 10 people were injured, some seriously after being trapped by debris. Meanwhile, a key highway out of Lysychansk is now impassable due to Russian shelling, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said in an online post on Friday.

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, said that there are 568 people sheltering in the Azot chemical plant in the city of Sievierodonetsk, where fighting has been raging. "Exit from the plant is possible only with a complete cease-fire."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has insisted that German weapons will arrive in time to help Ukraine fend off Russian forces in the eastern Donbas region. His comments, in an exclusive interview with DPA news agency, come amid criticism from Kyiv over the pace of weapons deliveries and the type of weapons sent.

Asked whether the heavy weaponry will arrive in time to make a difference in the Donbas, Scholz answered: "It will arrive in time." He said the priority for who gets German weapons first had to be changed as German arms manufacturers have a "long list of customers" waiting for deliveries. The chancellor promised to deliver an anti-ballistic missile system that is able to protect Odesa or Kyiv and said Berlin had decided together with the UK and the United States that it will deliver multiple rocket launchers.

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