Intense shelling in Eastern Ukraine | War in Ukraine

According to local authorities, the strike on Kramatorsk left one dead and six wounded.

Russian forces on Thursday bombarded several towns in Donbass, a basin in eastern Ukraine that they are trying to conquer in full, including that of Kramatorsk, where at least one civilian was killed, according to local authorities.

In Kramatorsk, capital of the Ukrainian-held part of Donbass, the explosion left a large crater in a courtyard between a hotel and buildings housing, found AFP journalists. There they saw the body of a person killed and wounded, as well as two burning cars.

Airstrike against the central part of Kramatorsk. There are victims, the mayor of the city, Oleksandr Gontcharenko, announced on Facebook, calling on residents to stay in the shelters.

This deliberate attack on civilians caused a dead and six injured, the governor of Donetsk province, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on Telegram, adding that these figures were provisional and that six buildings were damaged, including a hotel and a residential building.

“I ask everyone: evacuate! The evacuation is temporary, we must preserve life now. »

— Pavlo Kyrylenko, Governor of Donetsk

A car burns in a courtyard between a hotel and apartment buildings Kramatorsk dwelling after a Russian strike.

The Russians, who have advanced in recent weeks in the Donbass, their priority objective since their withdrawal from the vicinity of kyiv at the end of March, claim to have taken full control of the province of Luhansk, one of the two forming the mining basin.

The Russians have still not reached the limits of the region, the governor of the province, Sergey Gaidai, denied on Thursday, accusing the Russians of forcibly enlisting residents of the cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, under their control, dangling them a job.

Moscow forces are now seeking to conquer the other province, that of Donetsk, to occupy the entirety of Donbass, which the Moscow-backed separatists have been in partial control since 2014.

Donetsk Province Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said at least seven civilians were killed by multiple gunfire on Wednesday. #x27;artillery and rocket launchers in several localities.

Plumes of smoke were clearly visible on Thursday in a suburb of Sloviansk, in eastern Ukraine.

In this province, Sloviansk and its twin city Kramatorsk are considered the next targets of Russian forces in their plan to conquer Donbass, after four and a half months of conflict.

On Tuesday, Russian rockets struck and partially burned down and destroyed a market in central Sloviansk, killing at least two people.

On Wednesday, Sloviansk Mayor Vadim Liakh said the evacuation of the city, encouraged by local authorities, was “under way”.

I send my wife and after I have no choice, I enlist in the army tomorrow, Vitaly, 30, told AFP after completing his farewell to his wife Svitlana, who left for Dnipro (center) on Wednesday in a bus with some 150 women and children on board.

They had to leave, after what happened arrived yesterday (Tuesday), they hit the city center, Vitaly said, saying he was confident that Sloviansk would not fall into Russian hands and that his family would return there.

There were still around 23,000 of the approximately 110,000 inhabitants that it had before the conflict on Wednesday, its mayor said, counting 17 dead and 67 injured since the start of hostilities.

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In the south, the Russians are still bombarding the Mykolaiv region and fighting is raging around the city of Kherson, which they have occupied since the first days of the war and where they are trying to prevent counterattacks Ukrainians, according to kyiv.

The Ukrainian army finally affirmed on Thursday that it had regained control of Serpents' Island in the Black Sea, after having handed over its flag there a few days earlier, following the withdrawal of Russian forces from this small symbolic territory. .

Moscow, for its part, claimed to have carried out a strike there in the morning with high-precision missiles, killing some of the Ukrainian soldiers who went to plant a flag there and causing the flight survivors.

As all eyes in Western Europe were on Thursday on London, where British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resolved to leave power, the Ukrainian presidency thanked him for his support in the most difficult moments of the Russian invasion. President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his sadness.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last spring.

In Indonesia, a meeting of foreign ministers from the world's twenty largest economies (G20) began Thursday on the island of Bali, in the presence of Russia and Ukraine's Western allies.

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Given the tension between the two camps and the presence of the head of Russian diplomacy Sergey Lavrov, we expect a fairly tough confrontation, said a French diplomatic source.

The European Union has warned that it does not want Russia to use this G20 as a platform for its propaganda on the conflict in Ukraine.

A US official, however, said he expects virtually all G20 countries to agree on initiatives to address global food insecurity and volatile commodity prices. energy driven by war.

He added that a joint G20 statement on Ukraine would not be possible due to Russia's participation in the summit.

Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly met with her Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi, Thursday in Bali. The fate of Ukraine will be at the center of this meeting.

Thursday, on the eve of the interministerial meeting in Bali, Mr. Lavrov met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi there. The two sides have notably deemed unacceptable the unilateral sanctions adopted by circumventing the UN, according to the Russian ministry.

China, which refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has maintained good relations with the Kremlin despite efforts by Western countries to isolate it.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, lambasted the UN's failure to prevent war in Ukraine, and accused Russia of imposing its morally corrupt stance and illegal war on the Security Council.

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Ms Ardern, who has long criticized the right of veto of the five permanent members of the Security Council (China, United States, France, United Kingdom, Russia), renewed her call for a United Nations reform.

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