Ukraine warns Moscow is ready to step up fight in Donbas

Ukraine has warned that Russian forces are preparing to intensify their fight for key cities in the Donbas.

A building partially destroyed after a Russian missile strike in Kharkiv on Monday. Picture: AFP

Ukraine has warned that Russian forces are preparing to intensify their fight for key cities in the Donbas, as the death toll from a weekend shelling of an apartment building rose to 33.

Dozens of rescuers could be seen in the town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region working amid the ruins of the partially destroyed building on Monday, aided by a mechanical digger.

Earlier in the day deadly Russian rocket strikes slammed Kharkiv, the country’s second city, in a targeted attack on “a shopping centre and civilian residences”, regional chief Oleg Synyegubov said. Prosecutors in his region said “six civilians were killed, including a 17-year-old and his father, who were driving past” at the time of the attack, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

The Ukrainian army warned, meanwhile, that Russian troops were likely planning to launch some of their heaviest attacks yet in the Donetsk region.

“There are signs of enemy units preparing to intensify combat operations in the direction of Kramatorsk and Bakhmut,” it said, referring to two main cities still under Ukrainian control.

Russian state-run news agency TASS reported meanwhile that the pro-Moscow head of the Russian-occupied village of Velikiy Burluk in Kharkiv had been killed after his car was blown up. Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed “more than 300” Ukrainian combatants had been killed in a Russian strike near Chasiv Yar, without giving a date.

On Tuesday, authorities in the southern region of Kherson occupied by pro-Russia forces said Ukrainian shelling on a city there had killed seven people. “There are already seven dead and around 60 wounded” following artillery fire on the city of Nova Kakhovka, the Moscow-backed administration said.

It was not immediately possible to verify the claims.

AFP