deadly strike in the East, the Russian army targets Donetsk

► At least 15 dead in a strike on a building in the East

Russian forces continued to shell eastern Ukraine, killing at least 15 people on Sunday July 10 in a strike that gutted an apartment building in Chassiv Iar, a small town of 12,000 inhabitants, according to Ukrainian authorities.

According to the rescue, 24 people are still under the rubble, including a child, while five others were saved from the rubble. The four-storey building was hit by a Russian Hurricane missile, the governor of the Donetsk region said.

In his Sunday evening speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned « all those who order such strikes, all those who carry them out targeting our ordinary towns, our residential areas, kill absolutely deliberately »and promised to bring them to justice.

► The Russian army targets Donetsk

The Russian army, which announced in early July that it had taken control of the Lugansk region, is now targeting Donetsk to occupy the entire Donbass mining basin. It has been partially controlled since 2014 by separatists backed by Moscow after the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula.

The Ukrainian military reported heavy shelling, but a pause in Russian ground attacks. « The enemy in our operational zone remains behind the lines of defense, does not advance by land, does not have the possibilities and capabilities to create new strike groups », said the southern operational command, early Monday, July 11. In Kharkiv (north-east), the second largest city in the country, the governor reported new missile fire which hit a » educational institution « and a house, injuring one.

Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of hitting “deliberately, intentionally, mere houses, civilian objects, people. There are victims, dead, injured”. According to the Governor of Donetsk, at least 591 civilians have been killed and 1,548 others injured so far in the region since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.

For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense accused in a statement on Saturday the Ukrainians of installing men and armaments in schools and civilian buildings in several localities in the territory of Donetsk and Kharkiv.

► The targeted wheat harvests

Several Ukrainian officials have also accused the Russian forces of setting fires in the fields with their fire to destroy the crops.

At the same time, the authorities installed by Russia in Kharkiv indicated that “the harvest campaign (of wheat, editor’s note) had started in the liberated territories of the region”according to the Russian agency Ria Novosti.

Ukraine has been accusing Russia for weeks of stealing its wheat harvests in the occupied regions to resell it illegally on the international market.