Russia pounds 11 Ukraine regions, eight killed

Kyiv, July 22

Russian attacks on 11 regions across Ukraine overnight killed at least eight civilians and wounded others, authorities said on Saturday, as fierce fighting continues in Ukraine’s attempts to dislodge Russian forces from territory they have occupied.

Russian scribe killed, Moscow says kyiv using cluster bombs

• A Russian war reporter was killed and three were wounded on Saturday in what Moscow alleged was a Ukrainian attack using cluster munitions, prompting outrage from politicians
• The defence ministry said the wounded journalists were evacuated from the battlefield after coming under fire in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region. It said Rostislav Zhuravlev, who worked for state news agency RIA, died while being transferred. The ministry did not provide evidence that Ukraine had used cluster munitions in the incident
• Ukraine received cluster bombs from the US this month, but it has pledged to use them only to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers
• any countries ban the weapons because they disperse bomblets that rain shrapnel over a wide area and can pose a risk to civilians. Some typically fail to explode immediately. reuters

The regional prosecutor’s office in the eastern Donetsk region said four persons, including a couple, were killed as Russian forces on Friday night shelled the settlement of Niu-York, south of the city of Bakhmut — the site of the war’s longest and bloodiest battle until it fell to Moscow in May. Three other Niu-York residents were hospitalised.

Also on Saturday morning, Ukraine’s interior ministry said two civilians died as Russian forces on Friday struck Kostiantynivka, a city in the Donetsk region, from multiple rocket launchers. In a post on its official Telegram channel, the ministry said another civilian was wounded in the same attack, which also destroyed 20 private homes, cars and a gas pipeline.

Bulgaria to send equipment to ukraine

Sofia: Bulgaria has agreed to provide the Ukrainian army with some 100 armoured personnel carriers, marking a turnaround in the NATO member’s policy on sending military equipment to Kyiv following the appointment of a new, pro-Western government. Direct arms supplies were rejected by previous interim governments, appointed by President Rumen Radev. He is sympathetic to Russia and recently said that Ukraine was to blame for the war and that supplying arms to Ukraine only prolongs the conflict. AP

Two persons were also killed near the northern city of Chernihiv, some 100 km from the Russian border, as Russian cruise missiles destroyed the local cultural centre and damaged apartment blocks, the regional military administration reported on Saturday morning. It did not specify the exact time of the attack, saying only it took place within the previous 24 hours.

‘Military escorts for ships dangerous’

Moscow: Russian deputy foreign minister Sergey Vershinin said the option of providing military escorts to ships carrying food from Ukraine outside of the grain deal is dangerous and unrealistic, Russian News Agency, TASS reported. ANI

Three civilians were wounded as Russian troops overnight shelled a town neighbouring the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, local Gov Serhiy Lysak reported Saturday.

Ukrainian officials have regularly accused Moscow of using the Zaporizhzhia plant, which Russian forces captured early in the war, as a base for firing on Ukrainian-held territory nearby.

Fears have also mounted that Russia might sabotage the plant — Europe’s largest — in an attempt to stymie Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive, which has focused on the Zaporizhzhia region as well as the country’s industrial east.

The Ukrainian air force on Saturday morning said it had overnight brought down 14 Russian drones, including five Iranian-made ones, over the country’s southeast, where battles are raging.

In a regular social media update, the air force said all Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones launched by Russian troops during the night were brought down, pointing to Ukraine’s increasing success rate in neutralising them. — AP