Ukrainian authorities reported that Russian missile strikes and shelling had killed at the least 16 civilians in cities all through the nation after the Kremlin’s army leaders mentioned they’d ordered troops to “additional intensify” their actions in all areas.
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Residents of Kyiv sought cowl on July 16 as air-raid sirens blared throughout the Ukrainian capital, whereas Ukraine’s most senior atomic official accused Russian troops occupying Europe’s largest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhya of utilizing it to shell close by areas and retailer superior weapons.
The stories couldn’t be independently confirmed, however they arrive amid a flurry of lethal Russian strikes on civilian websites, together with an assault within the historic metropolis of Vinnytsya on July 15 that killed 24 folks.
Russia claimed the strike focused officers’ housing, however Ukrainian and U.S. officers rejected that assertion and mentioned the assaults hit civilian websites. At the very least 39 folks remained lacking following the strike.
After failing to take Kyiv within the early days of the warfare, Russia has turned its most important deal with taking the entire Donbas area — consisting of the jap provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.
However contemporary assaults have been reported as effectively within the north and south of Ukraine. The northeast metropolis of Kharkiv, the nation’s second-largest, has been blasted by heavy bombardments in current days. Ukrainian officers mentioned the Kremlin’s subsequent transfer may very well be a full-scale assault on the town of 1.45 million folks.
Serhiy Bolvinov, deputy head of the Kharkiv regional police, mentioned Russian rockets blasted a two-story residence block and different buildings.
“4 Russian rockets, presumably fired from round [the Russian city of] Belgorod at evening, at about 3:30 a.m., hit a residential constructing, a faculty, and administrative buildings,” Bolvinov wrote on Fb.
“The our bodies of three folks have been discovered below the rubble. Three extra have been injured. The victims are civilians,” Bolvinov added.
On July 16, the Russian Protection Ministry mentioned Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu gave “directions to additional intensify the actions of items in all operational areas, so as to exclude the potential of the Kyiv regime launching huge rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of settlements in Donbas and different areas.”
Within the Donetsk area, website of the heaviest preventing, seven civilians have been killed and 14 wounded over the previous 24 hours in assaults on cities, its governor mentioned on July 16.
Nevertheless, Serhiy Hayday, governor of the neighboring Luhansk area, mentioned Ukrainian troops had repelled a Russian in a single day assault on a strategic jap freeway. He mentioned Russian forces had been trying to seize the principle highway hyperlink between the cities of Lysychansk and Bakhmut “for greater than two months.”
“They nonetheless can not management a number of kilometers of this highway,” Hayday wrote on Telegram.
Stunning Photos Seize Destruction In Historic Ukrainian Metropolis Of Vinnytsya
Rescue work continued on July 15 following a Russian missile strike the day gone by within the Ukrainian metropolis of Vinnytsya that killed at the least 23 folks, together with three youngsters, and left many extra unaccounted for. Photos from the strike have triggered outrage world wide.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy mentioned in his nightly video handle late on July 16 that air-raid warnings have been being sounded throughout the nation, together with in Dnipro and Kremenchuk, two cities south of Kyiv alongside the Dnieper River.
He mentioned the Russians “are realizing that we’re steadily turning into stronger” and have been utilizing assaults on cities to “stress” and “intimidate” Ukrainians.
The Ukrainian Military’s Normal Employees mentioned early on July 16 that their forces had efficiently repelled assault operations by Russian troops close to the Spirne-Ivano-Daryivka areas of Donetsk.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian nuclear company Energoatom President Petro Kotin mentioned in a televised interview that the scenario at Zaporizhzhya is “extraordinarily tense” and stress on the Russians to free the realm’s nuclear plant “inadequate.”
Round 500 Russian troopers are mentioned to be controlling entry to Zaporizhzhya, which lies on the Dnieper River in southeastern Ukraine and has been in Russian palms for the reason that early weeks of the invasion.
“The occupiers convey their equipment there, together with missile techniques, from which they already shell the opposite facet of the Dnieper River and the territory of Nikopol,” Kotin mentioned.
He additionally criticized the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company’s dealing with of the scenario round Zaporizhzhya, which earlier than the warfare equipped round one-fifth of Ukraine’s domestically generated power.
“[The IAEA] is taking part in some political video games, balancing between Russia and Ukraine,” Kotin mentioned.
