by Ukraine warned that Russia is preparing to intensify fighting for cities in the country’s eastern Donbas region where the death toll from a Russian missile attack on a residential building over the weekend increased to 31 and rockets killed six in the country’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv.
Eastern Ukraine continued on Monday to be the main focus of a weeks-long grinding Russian offensive where 31 people were confirmed dead after a Russian missile raid on the town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly address.
The missile attack late on Saturday destroyed three buildings in a residential quarter of Chasiv Yar, a town inhabited mostly by people who work in nearby factories.
Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed on Monday that “more than 300” Ukrainian combatants had been killed in a Russian attack near Chasiv Yar, without giving a date or further details.
In Chasiv Yar, rescuers made voice contact with two people still alive beneath the rubble of the five-storey apartment building on Monday and emergency services released a video of workers pulling survivors from the concrete debris, where up to two dozen people had been trapped.
Having fought long battles to capture areas of eastern Ukraine in the Luhansk region, Russian troops are now turning their focus to neighbouring Donetsk as they look to take control of the whole of Donbas.
Military experts say Russia is using artillery barrages to pave the way for a renewed push for territory by ground forces.
The eastern region of the country was under persistent shelling on Monday but Russian ground attacks were all but paused, the Ukrainian army said.
Russian troops are likely planning to launch some of their heaviest attacks yet in the Donetsk region, the army said.
“There are signs of enemy units preparing to intensify combat operations in the direction of Kramatorsk and Bakhmut,” the army said, referring to two main cities still under Ukrainian control.
Moscow’s slow, artillery-led advance into the east – despite fierce Ukrainian resistance emboldened by recent deliveries of Western-supplied artillery – contrasts with the failure of Russian forces to capture the capital Kyiv at the start of the invasion.
Source: Aljazeera
