Kyiv, Ukraine –
The Ukrainian military said on Monday it had repelled more than a dozen Russian attacks in the east and north of the country, including attempts to advance on key cities in the eastern industrial heartland known as Donbas.
In its regular Facebook update, the military general staff said Russian troops tried to advance towards Kramatorsk, one of two main cities in the eastern province of Donetsk that remain under Ukrainian control, but “completely failed and chaotically retreated to their previous positions.
In the same post, the military said Russian forces had staged a failed assault on Bakhmut, a strategic town in the Donetsk region whose capture would pave the way for Russia to take Kramatorsk and Ukraine’s de facto administrative capital Sloviansk.
The Donetsk region is one of two provinces that make up Donbas, where fighting has largely focused in recent months, since Kremlin forces withdrew from around the capital Kyiv.
Russian authorities announced the full capture of the Lugansk region, the second of the two, early last month, though its Ukrainian governor has repeatedly claimed Kyiv forces are holding out in a small area near the regional border.
In the same update, the military claimed that Russia had unsuccessfully tried to break through Ukrainian defense lines in the northern Kharkiv region, home to Ukraine’s second-largest city, but were “harshly received and pushed back.”
Meanwhile, the Russian FSB, the KGB’s main successor agency, said it had thwarted a “sabotage and terrorist attack” on an oil pipeline in Russia’s southern Volgograd region, which it blamed on two Russian citizens colluding with security forces. Ukrainian security.
The claims could not be immediately verified.
Separately, Russian and Ukrainian officials traded more accusations Monday over fresh bombings of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, with each side claiming the other was responsible for attacks that raised fears of catastrophe.
The press office of the Kremlin-backed administration in Enerhodar, the Russian-controlled city where the plant is located, told the Interfax agency that Ukrainian forces were carrying out a “massive bombardment” of the facility, as well as of the residential and industrial areas of Enerhodar.
According to the statement, the shelling came from nearby Nikopol, a Ukrainian-controlled city that lies across the Dnieper River from the plant.
The mayor of Nikopol later said that the Russians themselves were shelling Enerhodar.
Mayor Yevhen Yevtushenko and other municipal authorities in Nikopol have repeatedly accused Russian troops stationed at the plant of shelling the city, knowing that Ukrainian forces were unlikely to return fire.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his call for new sanctions against Moscow and its nuclear industry in response to the situation. He described the actions of Russian forces there as “nuclear blackmail” that can embolden evil actors around the world.
As Russian forces kept up their artillery shelling around Ukraine, at least three Ukrainian civilians were killed and 20 others wounded, Ukrainian officials said.
The deaths and 13 of the injuries were attributed to Russian shelling that hit towns and villages in the Donetsk region, regional officials said.
In Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, seven civilians were injured by Russian shelling that hit residential buildings and an area near a bus stop. Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said an 80-year-old woman was among the injured.
The spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said on Monday that Russian warplanes attacked Ukrainian army positions in the southern Kherson region and in the Donetsk region. He added that the Russian air force also hit a facility in the Kharkiv region, killing at least 100 and wounding 50 “mercenaries” from Poland and Germany. His claims could not be independently verified.
Speaking at the opening of an arms exhibition outside Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the military, which he said were “liberating Donbas step by step”.
He also promised to expand arms sales to Russian allies, whom he praised for continuing to offer strong support to Moscow in the face of Western pressure.
For its part, the Ukrainian army claimed to have destroyed more than 10 Russian warehouses with ammunition and military equipment in the last week.
In other news on Monday:
- Lawyers for American basketball star Brittney Griner have filed an appeal against her nine-year Russian prison sentence for drug possession, Russian news agencies reported. Griner, a center for the Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was sentenced Aug. 4. She was arrested in February at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after vaporizer bottles containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage.
- The Ukrainian parliament extended martial law and the general mobilization of the country for another 90 days.
- Zelenskyy sacked the heads of three regional branches of Ukraine’s main security agency, SBU, in the Kyiv, Lviv and Tarnopil regions. Zelenskyy’s office did not elaborate on the reasons behind the move. Last month, he fired SBU chief Ivan Bakanov and a chief prosecutor, saying his departments had too many people accused of collaborating with the Russians.
- The trial of five European men captured in eastern Ukraine has begun in a court run by Kremlin-backed separatists, Russian media reported. Three of the five, a Swede, a Croat and a Briton, could face the death penalty on charges of serving as mercenaries and “receiving training to seize power” under the laws of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Russian state media reported. The remaining two, both British, face prison terms.
- A British military reconnaissance plane violated Russian airspace, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The ministry said in a statement that Russian air defense forces in Russia’s northwestern Arctic had seen the plane heading towards the border from the Barents Sea. A Russian fighter identified the plane as a British Air Force RC-135 and forced it out of Russian territory, the ministry said.
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Berlin would not support several European countries that have called for an EU-wide measure to stop issuing tourist visas to Russian citizens. Nations backing such a ban say Russians should not be able to vacation in Europe while Moscow wages war in Ukraine. Finland and Denmark want an EU decision and some EU countries that border Russia no longer issue visas to Russians. “This is not the war of the Russian people. It is (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war and we have to be very clear on that issue,” Scholz said.