Live blog: Ukraine governor accuses Russian forces of creating 'real hell'

Saturday, July 9, 2022

Russia continues to create 'real hell', Ukraine governor says

Russian forces are managing to “raise true hell” in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland despite reports of them taking an operational pause, a regional governor has said, while the government in Kiev urged people in Russian-occupied southern areas to evacuate “by all possible means" ahead of a Ukrainian offensive.

The governor of Luhansk,  Sergiy Gaiday, said Russia launched over 20 artillery, mortar and rocket strikes in the province overnight and its forces were pressing toward the border with neighbouring Donetsk.

Last week, Russia captured the last major stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, the city of Lysychansk. Analysts predicted Moscow's troops likely would take time to rearm and regroup.

Russian missiles pound east Ukraine, hit Kharkiv

The town of Druzhkivka in northern Donetsk has been hit in a suspected missile attack which ripped apart a supermarket and gouged a crater into the ground. Five people were killed in Donetsk in the past 24 hours while seven were injured, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday.

Oleksandr Vilkul, mayor of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, said Russia had attacked the city with cluster munitions, killing at least one person and injuring two.

Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday it had inflicted heavy losses in the Mykolaiv and Dnepropetrovsk regions, in southern and central Ukraine respectively, and claimed strikes on Donetsk and the Kharkiv region.

Zelenskyy sacks Ukraine's envoy to Germany, other ambassadors

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed several of Kiev's senior envoys abroad, including the country's  ambassador to Germany, the presidential website has said.

In a decree that gave no reason for the move, Zelenskyy announced the sacking of Ukraine's ambassadors to Germany, India, the Czech Republic, Norway and Hungary. It was not immediately clear if the envoys would be assigned new positions.

Zelenskyy has urged his diplomats to drum up international support and military aid for Ukraine as it tries to fend off Russia's February 24 offensive.

Russians try to advance in east Ukraine 

Ukrainian forces have battled to block Russian military advances into the eastern region of Donbass, a provincial governor said, as Ukraine urged its allies to send it more weapons.

Ukrainian officials reported heavy Russian shelling of towns and villages as Russian forces attacked from several directions.

"Russians are firing along the entire front line," the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said on the Telegram message system. "The enemy is trying to advance from the settlements of the Luhansk region to the first villages of Donetsk region."

Russia assembling reserve forces near Ukraine for future offensive, says British intelligence

Russia is moving reserve forces from across the country and assembling them near Ukraine for future offensive operations, British military intelligence said.

A large proportion of the new Russian infantry units are probably deploying with MT-LB armoured vehicles taken from long-term storage as their primary transport, Britain's Ministry of Defence tweeted in a regular bulletin. 

Blinken says raised concerns with China's Wang Yi over Russia alignment

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had discussed Russia's offensive in Ukraine during talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during which he also raised concerns over Beijing's alignment with Moscow.

Blinken made the comments at a news conference on the Indonesia's island of Bali after the talks with Wang that lasted a little over five hours. 

Situation deteriorates in Sievierodonetsk — Ukrainian official

A Ukrainian regional official warned of deteriorating living conditions in a city captured by Russian forces two weeks ago, saying Sievierodonetsk is without water, power or a working sewage system while the bodies of the dead decompose in hot apartment buildings.

Gov. Serhiy Haidai said the Russians were unleashing indiscriminate artillery barrages as they try to secure their gains in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk province. Moscow this week claimed full control of Luhansk, but the governor and other Ukrainian officials said their troops retained a small part of the province.

"Luhansk hasn’t been fully captured even though the Russians have engaged all their arsenal to achieve that goal,” Haidai told The Associated Press. “Fierce battles are going on in several villages on the region’s border. The Russians are relying on tanks and artillery to advance, leaving scorched earth.”

For live updates from Friday (July 8), click here