Donetsk, May 24 — DAN. Debaltsevo authorities will provide quick assistance to residents of the liberated Svetlodarsk in rebuilding their homes, Debaltsevo mayor Igor Zakharevich told the Donetsk News Agency on Tuesday.
«We are going to our kin and return our near and dear Svetolodarsk to the fold; it has been cut off from the town of Debaltsevo for so many years, ” Zakharevich said. „It is our native land. We’ll open the road to traffic and I will go there in person; construction teams will arrive for repairs, they will also carry out repairs after yesterday’s dam explosion which damaged windows in houses; we will carry out repairs quickly.“
The authorities will promptly deal with the issues of pension and welfare payment in the town. «The services are on stand-by. There’s much work to do, ” he added.
Russian coalition forces reportedly entered Svetlodarsk on Tuesday morning. The Debaltsevo mayor confirmed to the Donetsk News Agency that the Svetlodarsk Town Hall was flying a Russian flag.
Svetlodarsk is located 18 kilometers north of Debaltsevo. It was founded in 1968. On April 29, 2014, a rally in the town adopted a resolution in support of the Donetsk People’s Republic independence referendum. Activists replaced the Ukrainian flag on the Town Hall with the flag of the DPR. However, the Ukrainian army took the town in the summer of 2014. The town accommodates the Uglegorskaya thermal power plant, one of the largest in Europe.*jk