Russian forces launched an assault on two key cities in eastern Donetsk region on Saturday and continued rocket and shelling of other Ukrainian cities, including one near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Ukraine’s military and local officials said.
Both the towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka were seen as key targets of Russia’s ongoing offensive in eastern Ukraine, with analysts saying Moscow must capture Bakhmut if it is to advance on the regional centers of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.
“In the Donetsk direction, the enemy is conducting an offensive operation, concentrating its main efforts in the Bakhmut and Avdiivka directions. It is using ground attack and army aviation,” the Ukrainian General Staff announced on Facebook.
The last Russian strike on Slavyansk was on July 30, but Ukrainian forces are strengthening their positions around the city in anticipation of more fighting.
The last Russian strike on Slavyansk, Ukraine, was on July 30, but Ukrainian forces are strengthening positions around the city in anticipation of more fighting. Colonel Yury Bereza, regimental commander of Ukraine’s Volunteer National Guard, told The Associated Press that he expected things “won’t be calm for long.” He said eventually there would be an attack. (David Goldman/Associated Press)
“I think it won’t be quiet for long. Eventually there will be an attack,” Col. Yuriy Bereza, regimental commander of the Volunteer National Guard, told The Associated Press.
Russian shelling has killed five civilians and wounded 14 others in the Donetsk region over the past day, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kirilenko wrote on Telegram on Saturday, saying two were killed in Poprosny and one each in Avdiivka, Soledar and Pervomaisky.
Wounded civilians in Nikopol
The governor of the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region said three civilians were injured after Russian rockets fell on a residential neighborhood in Nikopol, a city across the Dnieper River from the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
The nuclear plant has been under Russian control since Moscow troops seized it at the start of the war.
“After midnight, the Russian army hit the Nikopol area with Grad rockets, and the Kriviy Rog area with barrel artillery,” Valentin Reznichenko wrote on Telegram.
Piles of grain are seen standing in a damaged warehouse Friday in Ukraine’s Zaporozhye region. The facility was damaged by a recent Russian missile strike. (Dmytro Smolienko/Reuters)
Another overnight Russian missile attack damaged unspecified infrastructure in the regional capital of Zaporozhye. On Thursday, Russia fired 60 missiles at Nikopol, damaging 50 residential buildings in the city of 107,000 and leaving residents without electricity.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned this week that the situation at the Zaporizhia plant was becoming more dangerous by the day.
Grossi reiterated his concern on Saturday, releasing a statement saying he was “extremely concerned” by the shelling near the plant on Friday.
He said military action threatening the safety and security of the Zaporizhia plant “is completely unacceptable and must be avoided at all costs.”
The Ukrainian company that runs the nuclear power plant said on Saturday that Russian troops were using the plant’s basement to hide from Ukrainian shelling and had banned their Ukrainian personnel from going there.
An elderly woman is seen peering out the window of her apartment on Saturday in Slavyansk, Ukraine. Its building was damaged in a rocket attack earlier this year. (David Goldman/Associated Press)
“Ukrainian personnel still do not have access to these premises, so in case of new shelling, people have no shelter and are in danger,” Enerhoatom, a Ukrainian state-owned enterprise, said on its Telegram channel.
Enerhoatom said on Friday that Russian missiles damaged the plant’s facilities, including a nitrogen-oxygen plant and a high-voltage power line. Local officials appointed by Russia acknowledged the damage but blamed it on alleged Ukrainian shelling.
Strikes on Nikolaev, Kharkiv
In southern Ukraine, two civilians were seriously injured on Saturday after Russian forces fired rockets at the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv before dawn, according to regional authorities. It followed an attack on Nikolaev on Friday afternoon that killed one person and injured 21 others.
In the Kherson region, south of Nikolaev, the deputy mayor of the Russian-occupied town of Nova Kakhovka is in critical condition after an assassination attempt, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported, citing the deputy head of the Kherson region, most of whom under Russian control.
An employee examines the ruins Saturday of a furniture factory in Kharkiv, Ukraine, after a missile strike. (Sergei Bobok/AFP/Getty Images)
To the north, Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv and its surroundings also came under Russian rocket fire again overnight, according to regional governor Oleg Sinegubov. An 18-year-old youth in Chuhuyev, a town near Kharkiv, had to be hospitalized on Saturday after picking up an unexploded shell.
Both Chuguev and Kharkiv have come under sustained Russian shelling in recent weeks due to their proximity to the Russian border.
The neighboring Sumy region, which also borders Russia, has also been subject to near-constant shelling and missile strikes. Its regional governor said Saturday that the province had been hit more than 60 times from Russian territory in the previous day, and one wounded civilian had to be hospitalized.
As for munitions, Russia has begun using Iranian combat drones in the war, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich said in a YouTube address, adding that Tehran had handed over 46 drones to the Russian military.
A Ukrainian official said on Saturday that North Macedonia had agreed to supply tanks and aircraft to Ukraine to help repel Moscow’s ongoing invasion.
“Many nations today are showing more courage than half of the G20.” Like North Macedonia, giving to Ukraine [supportive] shoulder in the form of tanks and planes,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote on Twitter.
North Macedonia’s defense ministry confirmed last week that it would supply Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine, but said nothing about aircraft deliveries.
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