Ukraine warns Russia to intensify fight against Donbass

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military warned that Russian troops were planning to launch some of their heaviest attacks yet in the Donetsk region.

Ukraine warned on Monday that Russian forces were preparing to intensify their fight for major cities in the Donbass, as President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Canada of easing sanctions against Moscow.
In eastern Ukraine – the focal point for a grinding Russian offensive – the death toll from a weekend shelling of an apartment building in the town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region rose to 33, according to emergency services.

Dozens of rescue workers could be seen working through the ruins of a partially destroyed building with the help of a mechanical excavator on Monday.

Also Read:- 15 killed when Russian rocket hits residential building in Donetsk: Report 11Jul 2022

Earlier in the day deadly Russian rocket attacks slammed the country’s second city of Kharkiv in a targeted attack on “a shopping center and civilian residences”, regional chief Oleg Sinegubov said.

According to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, prosecutors in his region said that “six civilians, including a 17-year-old and his father, were killed, who were driving in the past” at the time of the attack.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military warned that Russian troops were 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 the two main cities still under Ukrainian control.

The latest attacks in Ukraine came as Europe prepared to deep cut gas supplies from Russia.

Also Read:- Ukraine reports heavy Russian missile strikes in east and south: Report 10Jul 2022

On Monday Russian gas giant Gazprom began more than a week of routine maintenance on its Nord Stream 1 pipeline – eagerly in Germany and other European countries to see if the gas returns.

Over the weekend, Ottawa agreed to deliver a turbine to Germany that was undergoing maintenance in Canada, the absence of which Russia blamed for a lack of supplies.

Canada’s move, which came despite sanctions against Russia and appeals from Ukraine, prompted Kyiv to call the ambassador to Ottawa.

“The absolutely unacceptable exception to the sanctions regime against Russia forced the Foreign Ministry to call the Canadian envoy to our country,” Zelensky said in his daily telegram address.

Italy’s Eni and Austria’s OMV said Gazprom was further reducing gas supplies, with Germany and other European countries worried over energy supplies.

Also Read:- Ukraine urges Canada not to hand over gas turbines to Russia: Report 09Jul 2022

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Germany suspended certification of a second pipeline, Nord Stream 2, as fears grew over Europe’s heavy reliance on Russian gas.

– ‘No safe place’ –

Russian state-run news agency TASS meanwhile reported that the pro-Moscow chief of the Russian-occupied village Veliky Burluk in Kharkiv was killed after a car blew up.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed that “more than 300” Ukrainian fighters were killed in a Russian attack near Chasiv Yar without a date.

Moscow’s slow progress to the east – despite fierce Ukrainian resistance from recent deliveries of Western-supplied artillery – contrasted with their failure to capture the capital Kyiv at the start of the offensive.

In Buka, a city outside Kyiv, 36-year-old web designer Maxim said that three months ago, Russian soldiers were walking into his house and sleeping in their children’s bedrooms.

Sitting with the family outside his house, he said, “In this environment, I feel nothing can happen and life is normal.”

Also Read:- Russia says humanity is in danger if the West wants to punish it on Ukraine: Report 08Jul 2022

“But we know there is a war and no place is safe in Ukraine right now.”

With no end to the fighting in sight, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Root said during a visit to Kyiv that his country would supply Ukraine with more long-range artillery and a 200 million euro ($201 million) aid package.

Western weapons – especially precision, long-range artillery – were “already changing the course of the war,” the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksey Danilov, said earlier on Monday.

But while Moscow was also receiving a weapons boost, Iran was planning to supply hundreds of drones with combat weapons capabilities to Russia for use in Ukraine, a top US official said.

– ‘Another encroachment’ –

In a bureaucratic swipe in Kyiv, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday to fast-track citizenship for all Ukrainians.

The foreign ministry in Kyiv hit back, calling it “another encroachment on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, inconsistent with the norms and principles of international law”.

The decree builds on previous orders – including one issued earlier in the invasion – to make it easier for Ukrainians living in Moscow-occupied territory to obtain a Russian passport.

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Ukraine warns Russia to intensify fight against Donbass

Also Read:- Seven people killed as Russia pounds eastern Ukraine region of Donetsk: Report 07Jul 2022

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News East India staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)