At least six people were killed after an attack on a residential building in Chasiv in eastern Ukraine. On Saturday, the governor of the Donetsk region said that in eastern Ukraine “the entire front line is under relentless fire” from the Russian army. All news about the war in Ukraine can be found in the ticker.
12:53 p.m .: In an attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, Russian troops say they killed up to a hundred enemy soldiers. The missile attack on a ceramics factory, which served as a temporary location and ammunition depot for a Ukrainian artillery unit, also destroyed more than a thousand grenades for US M-777 howitzers, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Sunday. Accordingly, 700 grenades for the Grad multiple rocket launcher were also destroyed. The information could not be independently verified.
During dogfights in eastern Ukraine, Russian Su-35 fighters shot down two Ukrainian Su-25 fighters and another Mig-29 fighter, the report said. The Russian Defense Ministry claims to have shot down 242 Ukrainian planes and 137 helicopters since the start of the war. According to media reports, however, Ukraine only had around 100 aircraft and 90 helicopters in its fleet before the war.
Sunday, July 10, 11:12 a.m.: According to Ukrainian sources, at least 15 people were killed in a Russian rocket attack on a residential building in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine on Sunday. The local rescue service announced on the online network Facebook that 24 people were still buried under the rubble of the four-story building. The rescue workers have so far been able to contact three of them. According to the information, five people were rescued alive.
The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, initially said that at least six people had been killed and five others injured in the Russian attack.
The emergency services at the partially collapsed building were supported by an excavator. “I was in the bedroom, I came out and everything started shaking, collapsing,” a resident of the house, who declined to give her name, told AFP.
On Saturday, Governor Kyrylenko announced that in eastern Ukraine “the entire front line was under relentless fire” from the Russian army. Above all, the city of Sloviansk was bombed. Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are the two largest cities in the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control. Chasiv Yar is located about 50 kilometers south-east of Sloviansk.
The Russian army is currently pursuing the goal of conquering the predominantly Russian-speaking region of Donzek. According to Kyrylenko, 591 civilians have been killed and 1,548 others injured in Donetsk since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24.
10:50 p.m .: According to the authorities, six people were injured in a Russian rocket attack in the center of the second largest Ukrainian city of Kharkiv today. Among them was a 12-year-old girl. The regional prosecutor’s office said an Iskander ballistic missile was believed to have been used in the attack. One of the rockets hit and destroyed a two-story building. Neighboring houses were damaged.
Kharkiv has been the target of attacks since the war began, and the city has been hit several times in the past week. Ukraine’s national police say they are investigating the alleged destruction of crops by the Russian military. In a Telegram post, police accused Russian troops of forbidding residents from putting out fires in fields and otherwise sabotaging crops.
8:31 p.m .: Ukrainian soldiers are apparently mining areas on the border with Belarus. After visiting the positions there, Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev reported that measures are currently being taken to mine and set up barriers on the border with Belarus. The reports “The Kyiv Independent” and “Ukrajinska Pravda” unanimously.
7.30 p.m .: A UN report has assigned Ukrainian troops responsibility for the attack by pro-Russian rebels on a nursing home in the Luhansk region in early March. A few days before the attack, Ukrainian soldiers took up positions in the building in Stara Krasnyanka, effectively making it a target for attacks, according to a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
On March 11, pro-Russian rebels shot at the facility with heavy weapons, where 71 residents and 15 employees were staying. The exact number of dead has not yet been clarified, at least 22 residents managed to escape. Employees had repeatedly asked in vain for the building to be evacuated in advance, which was not possible due to the presumably mined area.
The UN report is said to be based on testimonies from surviving employees and information from relatives of residents. OHCHR has no figures on how often comparable incidents occur. However, dealing with the nursing home is symbolic of dealing with civilians.
1:36 p.m .: After taking the Luhansk region, according to Ukrainian information, the Russian army is now increasingly targeting the Donetsk region from there. The occupiers launched attacks from Lysychansk towards the west, Ukrainian Luhansk governor Serhiy Hajday said on Saturday. “We are making every effort to stop the Russian armed groups across the board.” However, according to Hajdaj, they are attacking from multiple sides and trying to penetrate deep into the neighboring area.
They create a “real hell” by rocket attacks and artillery fire. However, Ukrainian forces put up a brave resistance, Hajdaj said.
Five people were killed on Friday in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, as Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Saturday. “The entire front line is under relentless fire,” he wrote on Friday evening on the Telegram messenger service.
In the Donetsk region, Russia is likely to have its eyes on the larger cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk next. It is Moscow’s declared goal to wrest the region completely from Ukrainian control. According to the Ukrainian General Staff in Kyiv, there was shelling in other parts of the country, including Kharkiv and Chernihiv oblasts. Civilian infrastructure was also hit.
Enemy attacks were repeatedly repelled, it said. Ukrainian air, missile and artillery units fired on concentrations of Russian troops and ammunition dumps. “The enemy has suffered significant losses,” said the general staff in Kyiv.
1:15 p.m .: According to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, Russia has once again destroyed western weapons in massive attacks in eastern Ukraine. A hangar with US-supplied M777 howitzers was destroyed near the town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in Moscow on Saturday. Accordingly, numerous Ukrainian soldiers were killed there. This information could not be verified by an independent party.
Dozens of Ukrainian soldiers were also killed in artillery and rocket attacks in the Mykolaiv region in the south of the country, in the Dnipropetrovsk region around the city of Dnipro and other parts of the country, and military technology and some ammunition stores were destroyed, said Konashenkov. He showed a video of combat operations and maps showing the directions of the Russian armed forces.
Foreign fighters were also killed. In the Mykolaiv region, the air force also shot down two Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jets. In addition, the Russian air defense took down another 15 combat drones within 24 hours. This information was also not independently verifiable. The Ukrainian general staff reported Russian attacks on a broad front in Kyiv in the morning.´
9:53 a.m .: Great Britain has questioned the statements by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin that Russia has not really started the war against Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense in London referred to the Russian preparations for new offensives. The reinforcements are “ad hoc compilations” that are sent out with outdated or unsuitable equipment, it said on Saturday, citing intelligence information.
For example, a large part of the Russian reserves, which are being drawn together from all over the country, only have Soviet-type MT-LB troop carriers at their disposal. These vehicles are significantly weaker armored and armed than the BMP-2 armored personnel carriers that were used at the beginning of the war.
07.46: Ukraine are said to have “masterfully” maneuvered themselves into better positions in Luhansk despite losing ground. This is reported by a reporter and refers to high-ranking officials in the US military. How exactly this will help the Ukrainian troops in Luhansk is not clear in detail.
6:30 a.m.: Shelling in eastern Ukraine again injured or killed people. In the towns of Seversk and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, a total of five people were killed and three injured by Russian attacks on Thursday and Friday, the government authorities said. The pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk spoke of 3 dead and 14 wounded by Ukrainian shelling. Combat zone reports cannot be independently verified.
Saturday, July 9, 3:00 a.m.: Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk called on residents of Kherson to evacuate the southern region immediately. “I urge you to evacuate as soon as possible in any case. Don’t wait,” Vereshchuk said.
She warned residents that they could be used by the Russians as human shields and that staying in the occupied districts of Zaporizhia and Kherson regions is dangerous. “People have to find a way to leave because our armed forces will abandon their occupation. There will be huge battles,” she warned.
12:00 p.m.: Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region, said around 80 percent of residential buildings in the Russian-held city have been destroyed or badly damaged. In addition, the Russian armed forces would continue to plunder the houses of the residents.
Friday, July 8, 11:30 a.m.: According to information from the British Ministry of Defense, Russia is now targeting Siversk in the Donetsk region as the next tactical target. Accordingly, the Russian military is currently relocating its weapons and equipment to the city in the north of Donetsk.
The report also said that Russian forces are “trying to advance towards their most likely operational target, the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk urban area”. Currently, Russian troops are believed to be on pause to recuperate before a new offensive in the Donetsk region.
6:53 p.m .: Russian troops have again caused massive destruction in their unabated attacks in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. At least one person was killed and several others injured in an airstrike on the city of Kramatorsk on Thursday. According to Ukrainian sources, seven people were killed and several others injured in the region within 24 hours. The nearby city of Sloviansk was again attacked by Russian troops.
During the attacks on Kramatorsk, among other things, according to reports by AFP journalists, an explosion tore a large crater between a hotel and a residential building. The journalists saw one dead and several injured. Several houses and cars went up in flames. The city’s mayor wrote on Facebook: “Air raid on the center of Kramatorsk. There are victims.”
Kramatorsk is the capital of the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk region. Only about 15 kilometers away is the city of Sloviansk, which is apparently the next target for Russian troops in their advance in eastern Ukraine. Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are the two largest cities in the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control.
According to Russia, it has taken control of the entire neighboring Luhansk region and is now trying to conquer the Donetsk region. The goal is to occupy the entire Donbass region, parts of which have been controlled by Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.
The Ukrainian authorities again urged residents of the Donetsk region to flee. “The evacuation is underway. We get people out every day,” Sloviansk Mayor Vadym Liakh said on Wednesday. Of the approximately 110,000 residents of the city before the start of the war, around 23,000 are still in the city. On Wednesday, among other things, rockets hit a market square and surrounding streets in the center of Sloviansk, killing at least three people.
12:46 p.m .: According to the Ukrainian secret service, Russian occupiers are burning corpses in Cherson to hide the extent of their own losses. The secret service writes on Twitter that places with charred remains of people are being discovered time and again on the outskirts of the city. “Due to the considerable fire damage, it is difficult to identify the objects precisely,” it said.
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