Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces are raising the “real hell” in the industrial center of eastern Ukraine, despite assessments that they were taking an operational break, a regional governor said on Saturday, while another official Ukrainian urged people in the southern areas occupied by Russia to quickly evacuate “by all possible means” in the face of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Deadly Russian bombings were reported in eastern and southern Ukraine.
The governor of the eastern Luhansk region, Serhyi Haidai, said Russia launched more than 20 artillery, mortar and rocket attacks into the region overnight and its forces were pushing towards the border with the Donetsk region.
“We are trying to contain the armed formations of the Russians along the entire front line,” Haidai wrote in Telegram.
Last week, Russia captured the last major stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, the city of Lysychansk. Analysts predicted that Moscow’s troops would likely take some time to rearm and regroup.
But “so far there has been no operational pause announced by the enemy. It is still attacking and bombing our lands with the same intensity as before, “Haidai said. He later said the Russian bombing of Luhansk was suspended because Ukrainian forces had destroyed the ammunition depots and barracks used by the Russians.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk called on residents of Russian-controlled territories in the south to evacuate quickly so that occupation forces could not use them as human shields during a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
“We need to find a way to march, because our armed forces are coming to vacate,” he said. “There will be a massive struggle.”
At a press conference on Friday afternoon, Vereshchuk said there was a civilian evacuation effort for parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. She refused to give details, citing security.
It was unclear how civilians were expected to safely leave areas controlled by Russia while missile attacks and artillery bombardment continue in the surrounding areas, whether they would be allowed to leave or even hear the call. Government.
The death toll from the war continued to rise.
Five people were killed and eight others were injured in Friday’s Russian bombing of Siversk and Semyhirya in the Donetsk region, its governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, wrote in the Telegram on Saturday.
In the city of Sloviansk, named as a likely close target of Russia’s offensive, rescuers pulled a 40-year-old man from the rubble of a building destroyed on Saturday by bombing. Kyrylenko said there were several people under the rubble.
Russian missiles also killed two people and wounded three more on Saturday in the southern city of Kryvyi Rih, according to regional authorities.
“They were deliberately directed to residential areas,” Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, told Telegram. Kryvyi Rih Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul claimed on Facebook that cluster munitions had been used and urged residents not to approach unknown objects on the streets. More explosions were recorded on Saturday evening.
Kryvyi Rih is the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who visited on Friday to meet with Vilkul and the brigadier general commanding troops in the region. Zelenskyy’s office said it was informed about the “construction of defensive structures,” the support of troops, the supply of food and medicine to the city, and the help given to people who had fled to Kryvyi. Rih after being evicted from their homes in other parts of the country. Ukraine.
In northeastern Ukraine, a Russian rocket attack on Saturday hit the center of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, injuring six people, including a 12-year-old girl, authorities said.
“An Iskander ballistic missile was probably used,” the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office said. “One of the missiles hit a two-story building, causing it to be destroyed. Neighboring houses were damaged.”
The city has been targeted throughout the war, including several times last week. While survivor Valentina Mirgorodksaya rubbed a cut on her cheek, first responders cautiously inspected the shattered building during Saturday’s strike.
Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych told Telegram that six Russian missiles were fired on his city in southern Ukraine, near the Black Sea, but caused no casualties.
“Only that day, Russia hit Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Krivyi Rih, villages in the Zaporizhzhia region,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video. “It affected residential areas, in an absolutely conscious and purposeful way. … For days and days, the brutal attacks of the Russian artillery … do not stop. This terrorist act can only be stopped with modern and powerful weapons. “
Russian defense officials said Saturday that their forces destroyed a hangar that housed U.S. shells in the Donetsk region near the town of Chasiv Yar. There was no immediate response from Ukraine.
In other news on Saturday:
– Zelenskyy dismissed several ambassadors, including Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, who has been an open supporter of the Kyiv cause, but has also damaged Berlin. He was persistently critical of Germany’s perceived slowness in providing heavy weapons. He also received criticism for an interview in which he defended Stepan Bandera, a controversial Ukrainian nationalist from the time of World War II. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine issued a statement saying that Melnyk was only speaking for himself. Zelenskyy said the dismissals of the ambassadors were part of a routine rotation. Melnyk had held the post since 2015.
– The Ukrainian national police said they were opening a criminal investigation into the alleged destruction of crops by the Russian army in the southern Kherson region. In a Telegram post, he accused Russian troops of not allowing residents to put out fires in the fields and of sabotaging the harvest.
– The British Ministry of Defense said that Russian forces in Ukraine were armed with “obsolete or inadequate equipment”, including MT-LB armored vehicles fired from long-term storage that do not provide the same protection as modern tanks.
“While MT-LBS has previously been in service in support functions on both sides, Russia has long considered them unsuitable for most front-line infantry transport functions,” the British ministry said on Twitter. .
– The Minister of Sports of Ukraine, Vadym Gutzeit, said that 100 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have died on the battlefield or by Russian bombing, while 22 were captured by Russian forces. In a post on Facebook, Gutzeit said now more than 3,000 athletes are wearing uniforms.
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Journalists from the Associated Press of Ukraine contributed.
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