At least three Ukrainian civilians have been killed and 20 others injured in the latest Russian army artillery barrages, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.
The eastern region of Donetsk, one of the two provinces constituting the industrial heart of the country, Donbass, which is the subject of a Russian offensive, faced the most intense bombardments.
According to regional officials, at least three people have died and 13 others have been injured by Russian shelling that hit several towns and villages in the Donetsk region over the past 24 hours. The dam damaged dozens of residential buildings and civilian infrastructure.
In the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, seven civilians were injured in the latest Russian bombardment that hit residential buildings and an area near a bus stop early Monday. Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said the injured included an 80-year-old woman.
Russian forces have also struck several other regions of Ukraine with rockets and artillery.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said on Monday that Russian warplanes hit Ukrainian army positions in the southern Kherson region and Donetsk region. He added that the Russian air force also struck a facility in the Kharkiv region, killing at least 100 “mercenaries” from Poland and Germany and wounding 50 others. His claims could not be independently verified.
Speaking at the opening of an arms fair outside Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the actions of the military in Ukraine, saying it is “fighting for Russia […] and fulfills all the tasks entrusted to him, liberating the Donbass step by step”. He also promised to expand arms sales to Russian allies, whom he praised for continuing to offer strong support to Moscow in the face of Western pressure.
For its part, the Ukrainian army claimed to have destroyed more than 10 Russian warehouses containing ammunition and military equipment in the past week.
Separately, Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, extended martial law and general mobilization in the country for another 90 days.
“Ukraine has always aspired and yearns for peace and repeatedly, in various negotiation formats, has offered the Russian leadership to end the war and liberate Ukrainian land from occupation,” it said on Sunday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a video. “But so far, Russia believes in terrorism, remains in the grip of its propaganda delusions and still supposedly hopes to achieve something through various forms of blackmail. It will not,” he added.
He stressed that “we have to defend ourselves”, adding that “the stronger Ukraine is, the weaker Russia will be, and therefore the shorter this war will last”.
President Zelensky sacked the heads of three regional branches of Ukraine’s main security agency, SBU, in Kyiv, Lviv and Tarnopil regions. His office did not specify the reasons for this decision. Last month, he sacked SBU chief Ivan Bakanov and a chief prosecutor, saying their departments had too many people accused of collaborating with the Russians.
In an interview with Singaporean television CNA, Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska said that “no one in the world can take a neutral stance in this war”, adding that “you can either side with the aggressor or the one who is attacked, there is no other choice”.
“People in other countries should know — it’s not Ukraine that should be blamed for the price spike, it’s the aggressor that started the war,” she said.