Ukraine expects a fresh assault by Russian ground forces, following widespread shelling which killed more than 30 people, as Kyiv’s Western allies brace for a worsening of the global energy crisis if Russia cuts its supply of oil and gas.
Ukraine’s general staff said the shelling across the country amounted to preparations for an intensification of hostilities as Russia seeks to seize Donetsk province, and control the whole of Ukraine’s Donbas industrial heartland.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had carried out 34 air strikes since Saturday, one hit a five-storey apartment killing 31 people and trapping dozens.
Moscow denies targeting civilians but many Ukrainian cities, towns and villages have been left in ruins. And the human cost of Russia’s invasion, Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two and now in its fifth month, mounts.
Russian state news agency TASS reported a Ukrainian attack on the Russian-held town of Nova Kakhovka in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region killed six people and left many injured.
“There are six people confirmed [dead]. And many dozens injured, (with) shrapnel wounds, cuts,” the report said, citing Vladimir Leontyev, head of the Russian-installed Kakhovka District military-civilian administration in the Kherson region.
“There are still many people under the rubble. The injured are being taken to the hospital, but many people are blocked in their apartments and houses,” Leontyev added.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield accounts.
Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 claiming it was a “special military operation” to demilitarise its neighbour and rid it of dangerous nationalists. Kyiv and the West say it was an imperialist land grab by Putin.
After Putin failed to quickly take the capital Kyiv, his forces turned to the Donbas, where its two provinces Donetsk and Luhansk have been partly controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014.
Putin aims to hand control of the Donbas to the separatists and on Monday eased rules for Ukrainians to acquire Russian citizenship.Â
