Prepared for any attacks: Ukraine's eastern region head

Lysychansk: As the eastern region in Ukraine witnessed heavy fighting between home forces and Russians, the governor of Lugansk and Lysychansk, Sergiy Gaiday, said his troops are prepared for any attacks. He showed his pockets and showed gun cartridges and tourniquet, Agence France-Presse reported.

In the Severodonetsk city in the Lugansk region, immense street fighting is going on between the two parties.

In an interview with AFP, Gaiday said, "It's a tough situation, in the city (of Lysychansk) and in the region as a whole are just shelling our troop positions 24 hours a day."

The street fighting might start in Lysychansk, too, as there were soldiers digging trenches and raising barbed wire. Also, police were seen lining burned vehicles on roads to restrain traffic.

AFP quoted him saying, "There's an expression: prepare for the worst, and the best will come by itself."

He said that Russians might surround Lysychansk and cut off supplies since "this is a war, anything can happen" and pointed out how Severodonetsk got cut off.

Gaiday urged for more long-range weaponry supplies to arrive as soon as possible to keep the defence intact.

Further, he said that there were no safe places in the Lugansk region but promised that he was always ready to fight, showing the ammunition he carried in his pockets and adding that he had a semiautomatic rifle in his car.

He said that civilians still in Lysychansk, which is about 10 per cent of the original population, were having poor conditions without communication channels, running water or power. They cook food on campfires and shelter in cellars. Though the administration persuaded them to leave, they refused, he said.