Russian troops control about 80 per cent of the fiercely contested eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk and have destroyed all three bridges leading out of it. But Ukrainian authorities are still trying to evacuate the wounded, a regional official said on Tuesday.

Serhiy Haidai, governor of the eastern Luhansk region, acknowledged that a mass evacuation of civilians from Sievierodonetsk now is "simply not possible" due to the relentless shelling and fighting.

Ukrainian forces have been pushed to the industrial outskirts of the city because of "the scorched earth method and heavy artillery the Russians are using," he said.

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"There is still an opportunity for the evacuation of the wounded, communication with the Ukrainian military and local residents," he told The Associated Press by telephone, adding that Russian forces have not yet completely blocked off the strategic city.

About 12,000 people remain in Sievierodonetsk, from a pre-war population of 100,000. More than 500 civilians are sheltering in the city's Azot chemical plant, which is being relentlessly pounded by the Russians, according to Haidai.

A Russian general, meanwhile, said a humanitarian corridor will be opened Wednesday to evacuate civilians from the Azot plant. Col-General Mikhail Mizintsev said evacuees would be taken to the town of Svatovo, 60km to the north in territory under the control of Russian and separatist forces.

He said the plan was made after Ukraine called for an evacuation corridor leading to territory it controls.

Mizintsev, head of the National Defence Management Centre, is accused by Ukraine of human rights violations while commanding troops during the long siege of Mariupol, Ukraine's key port on the Sea of Azov that has been taken over by the Russians.

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Russian forces in the past few weeks have pressed hard to capture Ukraine's eastern industrial Donbas area, which borders Russia and is made up of the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

"The situation is difficult," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a news conference on Tuesday with Danish media.

"Our task is to fight back."

With the conflict now in its fourth month, the battle of Donbas could dictate the course of the war.

If Russia prevails, Ukraine will lose not only land but perhaps the bulk of its most capable military forces, opening the way for Moscow to grab more territory and dictate its terms to Kyiv.

A Russian failure, however, could lay the grounds for a Ukrainian counteroffensive – and possible political upheaval for the Kremlin.

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In other news, French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Romania on Tuesday to hold bilateral talks and meet with French troops stationed there who are part of NATO's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Macron's visit to Romania, a European Union member since 2007 and a NATO member since 2004, marked the beginning of a regional tour that includes a visit Wednesday to non-NATO Moldova. Both countries share long borders with embattled Ukraine.

"Nobody knows what is in store for us in the coming weeks and months, but we will do all we can to put an end to the Russian invasion, to help Ukrainians and continue with negotiations," Macron said at the eastern Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, where he was greeted by Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca.

In a brief address to French soldiers deployed at the NATO base, Macron praised them for "honoring our commitment to defend Europe as war is being waged again."

The Australian energy regulator has halted the electricity market in a drastic intervention as the nation's power supply faces "very challenging times".

It follows days of blackout warnings as generators react to price caps by withdrawing supply from the market, in order to trigger compensation payments when they are directed to return that energy to the grid.

The unprecedented move means the usual process of bids and supply between generators and retailers has been suspended in the National Electricity Market (NEM), which includes every state and territory in Australia except Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

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It is the first time the NEM has ever been suspended.

AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman said the NEM is experiencing challenging times due to a confluence of factors like cold weather, coal shortages and high prices.

"Right now, we see the market is not able to deal with all the factors thrown at it – frankly, those factors are quite extreme," he said.

In a statement, AEMO said it had taken the step because operating the spot market while ensuring reliable electricity supply had become "impossible".

AEMO will apply a pre-determined suspension pricing schedule for each market region.

A compensation regime applies for eligible generators who bid into the market during suspension price periods.

"In the current situation suspending the market is the best way to ensure a reliable supply of electricity for Australian homes and businesses," Westerman said in the statement.

"The situation in recent days has posed challenges to the entire energy industry, and suspending the market would simplify operations during the significant outages across the energy supply chain."

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The market suspension is temporary, and will be reviewed daily for each NEM region.

When conditions change, and AEMO is able to resume operating the market under normal rules, it will do so as soon as practical.

The market suspension is reliant on generators abiding and reporting their availability to the regulator.

Westerman urged all generators act in "good faith" and abide by the AEMO suspension to ensure all Australians can turn on the light switch tonight.

"We would urge all generators to act in good faith. By suspending the market, what we are creating is one simple place where generators should put all their availability and be dispatched in a simple and methodical way and have cost recovered in the process they are familiar with," he said.

Westerman said price caps, coupled with significant unplanned outages and supply chain challenges for coal and gas, were leading to generators removing capacity from the market.

READ MORE: 'Scorched earth' tactics push Ukrainian troops back from key city

He said this was understandable, but with the high number of units that were out of service and the early onset of winter, the reliance on directions has made it impossible to continue normal operation.

Westerman said NSW residents are at risk of seeing power outages in the coming days even with the market suspension.

"Despite this, conditions remain tight in the coming days, in particular in New South Wales where we would urge consumers to conserve energy where it is safe to do so," he said.

NSW Treasurer and Energy Minister Matt Kean urged NSW residents to reduce their energy consumption between 5.30pm and 8.30pm tonight.

"If there is an opportunity to reduce their energy usage like not using their dishwasher until they go to bed, that would help," he said.

The reason for the caution, Kean said, is because a number of coal-fired power stations which were expected to come online tonight have not.

"A number of our coal-fired power stations aren't working when we need them to," he said.

Kean added Vivid will still go ahead in Sydney tonight.

The decision to suspend the market was taken by AEMO and government bodies were advised of the drastic measure.

"This decision was taken by AEMO, and we had to ask each state that they supported it," Westerman said.

"I am in contact with states at the ministerial level and parliament level to be transparent in the way we are thinking about managing these situations.

"My understanding is they support it."

Energy ministers from the affected states and territories, including Kean, have welcomed the decision.

"This action by AEMO is to secure energy supply in National Electricity Market (NEM) states, including here in NSW," he said.

"This decision will help prevent energy companies from putting energy reliability at risk by unnecessarily withdrawing supply."

A shocking admission was heard during the New South Wales flood inquiry today: life-saving help was withheld due to safety regulations. 

Key government bodies fronted the inquiry into the flooding disaster that devastated parts of NSW and caused multiple lives to be lost. 

The inquiry heard Maritime NSW refused to deploy taxpayer-funded boats to rescue residents in Lismore while the town was submerged by water because of OH&S rules.

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"From my point of view, we can't put our staff into that circumstance unless they are trained," NSW Maritime Executive Director Mark Hutchings told the inquiry.

Meanwhile, Lismore resident Kayla Youngberry watched while floodwaters lapped at her family home's roof and waited to be rescued.

Today she questioned why the state resources weren't deployed while instead locals with tinnies and surfboards saved lives.

"My question would be what if it was his family if it was someone he knew, would you still make that same call knowing your family and friends would be inundated by water?" she said.

"If it wasn't for those tinnies, I'd be still on that roof."

Liberal MP Catherine Cusack took aim at the emergency response for not deploying the boats.

"People literally were dying while publicly funded boats sat in sheds because of OH&S," she said.

The flood inquiry also heard about a school in Ballina that opened as an evacuation centre only for the principal to be told by a public servant to shut it down because it wasn't officially approved.

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"She told me because we weren't officially approved, we had to disperse the families to properly certified locations," Principal at Xavier Catholic College Ballina Kevin Lewis said.

A few hours later the government changed its mind and asked the school to open as an evacuation centre for 1000 evacuees, two nursing homes and a field hospital.

"My staff were toileting and washing aged-care people who had no support," Lewis said.

"One of my staff members was asked what credentials she had to be supporting evacuees.

"Confused, she asked for clarification. She was pressed further: 'What title do you have as a support person?', she replied 'GSD, we get s— done."

Resilience NSW Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons defended the actions of emergency response services. 

"At what point do we realise we have overcomplicated and should have actually simplified the process?" Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Mark Banasiak asked Fitzsimmons.

"I do believe it is as simple and as locally applicable as it can be," Fitzsimmons responded.

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The inquiry also took aim at Resilience NSW and whether it serves a purpose during emergencies.

"Is Resilience NSW just in its infancy or is it a failed experiment?" Banasiak said.

The firefighters union echoed this sentiment as Leighton Drury said: "it feels like a $1.2 billion bureaucracy of doing nothing, that isn't already being done"

The inquiry continues.

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Eleven people were injured and four left in a serious condition after a mini-bus and car collided in Far North Queensland this morning.

The crash occurred around 10.40am on the Smithfield Bypass near Cairns when a car hit the mini-bus head-on.

One person is currently critically injured, three are in serious conditions, and another five are stable.

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Queensland Ambulance Service said one of the patients initially assessed had become trapped in his vehicle, sustaining significant leg and hip injuries.

Michael Low, the officer in charge for Smithfield, said the job required a large paramedic response.

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"On arrival paramedics were confronted with 11 patients, the majority of those patients were in their 50s and on the mini-bus," he said.

"One patient was entrapped with leg injuries, a female patient had head, neck injuries and there were other patients with limb injuries, fractured legs and arms."

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Amber Heard has spoken out about everything from the public's treatment of her during her defamation trial with ex-husband Johnny Depp to whether she was telling the truth about his alleged abuse.

Heard sat down for an exclusive interview, her first, with NBC News' Savannah Guthrie, a portion of which aired on the US Today program on Tuesday.

The actress did not back down from her claims that Depp had physically and emotionally abused her during their marriage.

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"To my dying day, I will stand by every word of my testimony," she told Guthrie.

Heard said she was also aware of the negative light the case shone on both her and her ex-husband.

"I would not blame the average person for looking at this and how it's been covered and seeing it as Hollywood brats at their worst," she told Guthrie.

"But what people don't understand is it's actually so much bigger than that."

Heard said she believed "the vast majority of this trial was played out on social media," referencing the many memes and spoofs of the court case which circulated on TikTok and other platforms.

She said the jury was "not immune" to those less-than-flattering portrayals of her.

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"I think even the most well-intentioned juror, it would have been impossible to avoid this," she said.

Guthrie pushed Heard on whether she had abused Depp after the Aquaman star said she never started a physical fight with Depp despite audio played during the trial, which appeared to show she had.

Guthrie pointed out that Heard's alleged aggression was "in black and white" via a court transcript.

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"As I testified on the stand about this, is that when your life is at risk, not only will you take the blame for things that you shouldn't take the blame for," she said.

"But when you are in an abusive dynamic psychologically, emotionally and physically, you don't have the resources that, say, you or I do with the luxury of saying, 'hey this is black or white' because it's anything but when you're living in it."

Heard admitted that she "did do and say horrible things throughout my relationship".

"I behaved in horrible, almost unrecognisable to myself ways," she said.

"I have so much regret."

"This was the most humiliating and horrible thing I have ever been through."

Depp had sued his ex-wife for $US50 million, alleging she defamed him in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which she wrote about her experience with domestic violence.

Depp was not referred to by name in Heard's piece, but he said it cost him work. Heard countersued him for $US100 million.

Both Heard and Depp were found liable for defamation in duelling lawsuits against each other.

The jury, however, awarded significantly more damages to Depp.

Heard said during her interview that in the days leading up to the trial she had to walk by blocks of Depp supporters on her way to court, holding signs that disparaged her with phrases that included "Death to Amber".

The courtroom was packed with "vocal, energised" fans of Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean" character, she said.

"This was the most humiliating and horrible thing I have ever been through," Heard said.

"I have never felt more removed from my own humanity. I felt less than human."

Heard said she believes the verdict may have been different had "really important pieces of evidence" from a UK libel case Depp lost in 2020 against a British tabloid that called him a "wife beater" been allowed to be submitted in her case.

When asked if she thought Depp's lawyers were better than hers, Heard said his attorneys "did a better job of distracting the jury from the real issues."

Heard's team has said they intend to appeal the verdict.

Guthrie said she interviewed Heard more than a week after the trial ended.

Prior to launching into an earlier interview with two of Depp's attorneys, Benjamin Chew and Camille Vasquez, Guthrie disclosed that her husband, public relations consultant Michael Feldman, had provided consulting services for Depp and his team, but not in connection to her interview.

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