Ukrainian forces in east fighting to hold onto declining territory under control
\n KYIV
\nRussian missiles struck cities and villages in eastern and southern Ukraine on Tuesday, hitting homes, a school and a community center as Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Iran to discuss a U.N.-backed proposal to unblock exports of Ukrainian grain.
\nIn Kramatorsk, a city in eastern Ukraine\u2019s Donetsk province that is considered a likely occupation target of Russian forces, one person was killed in an airstrike that hit a five-story residential building, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
\nUkraine\u2019s Emergency Service said on Telegram that 10 people were wounded, five of them hospitalized, but it didn\u2019t mention any deaths.
\nFresh blood stained the concrete nearby as apartments on at least two floors burned. In the aftermath of the attack, shrapnel was placed in a small pile near an empty playground.
\n\u201cThere was no one here. Everything is ruined,\u201d said Halyna Maydannyk, the resident of one burned apartment. \u201cWho knows why they\u2019re doing this? We were all living peacefully.\u201d
\nKramatorsk residents Mykola Zavodovskyi and Tetiana Zavodovska stood in bandages outside a local hospital. They said they heard a loud clap and went to their balcony to investigate. Then everything exploded and the windows shattered.
\n\u201cProbably it was a rocket, and probably it was brought down by Ukrainian forces,\u201d they said.
\nThe strike shortly after noon came after Kyrylenko had earlier reported four other Russian strikes in Kramatorsk and urged civilians to evacuate.
\nRussian forces also fired seven Kalibr cruise missiles overnight at the Odesa region in southern Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry said strikes on the village of Bilenke had a legitimate military goal and \u201cdestroyed depots of ammunition for weapons supplied by the United States and European countries.\u201d
\nA local official disputed Moscow\u2019s claim and said six people were wounded. \u201cThese strikes on peaceful people have one goal \u2014 to intimidate the population and the authorities and keep them in constant tension,\u201d Serhiy Bratchuk, the speaker of the Odesa regional government, told Ukrainian television.
\nAmid indications that Ukraine was planning counterattacks to retake occupied areas, the Russian military in recent weeks has targeted Odesa and parts of southern Ukraine where its troops captured cities earlier in the war.
\nMeanwhile, Ukrainian forces on the ground in the east are fighting to hold onto the declining territory under their control.
\nAt least two civilians were killed and 15 more were wounded by Russian shelling across Ukraine over the past 24 hours, Ukraine\u2019s presidential office said in a morning update.
\n\u201cThere remains a high level of threat of missile strikes throughout the territory of Ukraine,\u201d said Oleksandr Shtupun, spokesman of the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces.
\nIn eastern Ukraine\u2019s Donetsk province, which has been cut off from gas supplies and in part from water and power, one person was killed and two others were wounded.
\n\u201cThe infrastructure of the cities is being methodically destroyed by missile strikes, and the civilian population, cut off from bare necessities, suffers the most,\u201d Kyrylenko said in televised remarks.
\nThe missile strikes came as the British military said it believes Russia is facing \u201cincreasingly acute\u201d problems in keeping up its troop strength in its grinding war of attrition that began with the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
\nThe British Defense Ministry said in a Tuesday morning assessment that Russia \u201chas struggled to sustain effective offensive combat power since the start of the invasion, and this problem is likely becoming increasingly acute\u201d as Moscow seeks to conquer the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
\nThe British military added: \u201cWhile Russia may still make further territorial gains, their operational tempo and rate of advance is likely to be very slow without a significant operational pause for reorganization and refit.\u201d
\nUkraine\u2019s parliament approved President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s decision to dismiss Ivan Bakanov as head of the country\u2019s Security Service, the SBU. Zelenskyy removed Bakanov, as well as Iryna Venediktova, who served as Ukraine\u2019s prosecutor general, over the weekend. The parliament separately voted to approve Venediktova\u2019s ouster. As part of the reshuffle, Zelenskyy on Tuesday also fired heads of five regional branches of the SBU and one deputy head of the agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukrainian forces in east fighting to hold onto declining territory under control KYIV Russian missiles struck cities and villages in eastern and southern Ukraine on Tuesday, hitting homes, a school and a community center as Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Iran to discuss a U.N.-backed proposal to unblock exports of Ukrainian grain. In Kramatorsk, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-272324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n