Ukraine Clashes with Russian troops on fronts in the east and south were reported on Sunday, in which a rocket attack killed six civilians, as the United States sought international support in resisting Russia’s aggression.
Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions near the eastern city of Slovakia, but were forced to withdraw, Ukraine’s military said, after Russian forces launched a cruise missile attack on Kharkiv, a city northeast of the border. It did not provide any details of damages or casualties.
Serhi Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region, said Russian forces were gathering in the area of the village of Bilohorivka, about 50 km (30 miles) east of Slovak.
“The enemy … is shelling the surrounding settlements, carrying out air strikes, but it is still unable to capture the entire Luhansk region,” he said on the Telegram message channel.
“Only during the previous night, the Russians launched seven artillery barrages and four rocket attacks.”
Reuters could not independently verify the Battlefield accounts.
Russia says it wants to control the entire Donbass, an eastern industrial heartland made up of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, on behalf of Moscow-backed separatists in two self-declared people’s republics.
The governor of the Donetsk region said six civilians were killed in a Russian rocket attack on an apartment block in the town of Chasiv Yar, about 30 km (20 mi) southeast of Slovakia, with about 30 believed to be trapped in the ruins. .
In this handout image released on July 10, 2022, a rescue operation is underway after a missile strike at a location referred to as Chesiev Yar, Ukraine, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Governor of the Donetsk region (Pavlo Kirilenko/Handout/Reuters)
Meanwhile, Russia’s Tass news agency, citing pro-Russian separatists, said Ukrainian forces had fired an artillery bombardment into residential districts of the city of Donetsk.
A Ukrainian military spokesman was not immediately available for comment. President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that the Russian military had deliberately targeted civilians.
Russia, which last weekend claimed control of the entire Luhansk province, denies targeting civilians.
Russia sent thousands of troops to Ukraine on February 24 in what it called a “special operation” to undermine its military capabilities and root out dangerous nationalists. Kyiv and its western allies called the invasion an unprovoked land grab.
Ukraine’s military has put up strong resistance and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an attempt to force it to retreat.
focus on diplomacy
Ukraine’s military command said that in the south, Ukrainian forces fired missiles and artillery at Russian targets, including ammunition depots in the Chornobyevka region.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Asia, where he is urging the international community to join forces to condemn the Russian aggression.
He told reporters on Saturday that he had raised concerns with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi about Beijing’s alliance with Moscow.
The two met for more than five hours on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali. Russia’s Sergei Lavrov left a meeting there on Friday, denouncing “frenzied criticism” of the West.
The Chinese foreign ministry, without giving details, said that Wang and Blinken had discussed Ukraine.
It quoted Wang as saying that Sino-US relations were at risk of further “straying”, leading many to believe “the United States is suffering from an increasingly serious bout of ‘Chinaphobia’.”
A general view of a building damaged after a missile attack, at the location given as Chasiv Yar, Ukraine, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in this handout image released on July 10, 2022. (Governor of the Donetsk region Pavlo / Reuters)
Shortly before the Russian offensive, Beijing and Moscow announced a “no borders” partnership, although US officials have said they did not see China evading US-led sanctions on Russia or providing military equipment.
Blinken was in Thailand on Sunday and was on a trip to Japan on Monday.
Zelensky dismissed several senior Ukraine envoys abroad, saying it was part of “normal diplomatic exercise”. He said he would appoint new ambassadors to Germany, India, the Czech Republic, Norway and Hungary.
Zelensky has urged his diplomats to use international support and state-of-the-art weapons to slow Russia’s progress.
But Ukraine suffered a diplomatic setback on Saturday when Canada said it would return a repaired turbine that Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom used to supply natural gas to Germany. Ukraine argued that the withdrawal would violate sanctions on Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated that the Kremlin was in no mood to compromise, saying sanctions against Russia risked “catastrophic” energy price hikes.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said sanctions were working, echoing calls for more deliveries of high-precision Western weapons.
“The Russians desperately try to lift sanctions that prove they hurt them. Therefore, sanctions should be extended until Putin abandons his aggressive plans,” Kuleba said in Dubrovnik by videolink told a forum.