Deadly Russian shelling was reported in eastern and southern Ukraine. The governor of eastern Luhansk region, Serhyi Haidai, said Russia had launched more than 20 artillery, mortar and rocket attacks in the province overnight and its forces were pushing towards the border with Donetsk region. “We are trying to contain the armed formations of the Russians along the entire front line,” Haidai wrote on Telegram. Last week, Russia captured the last major stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, the town of Lysychansk. Analysts predicted that Moscow’s troops would likely need some time to re-equip and regroup. But “so far no operational pause has been announced by the enemy. It is still attacking and bombing our territories with the same intensity as before,” Haidai said. In a later post, he claimed that the Russian bombing of Luhansk was suspended because Ukrainian forces had destroyed ammunition depots and barracks used by the Russians. Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk called on residents of Russian territories in the south to evacuate so that occupation forces cannot use them as human shields during a Ukrainian counter-attack. “You have to find a way to get out, because the armed forces are coming to take us over,” he said. “It’s going to be a huge battle. I don’t want to scare anyone. Everyone understands all this anyway.” Speaking at a press conference late Friday, Vereshchuk said an evacuation effort was underway for parts of Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. He declined to give details, citing security reasons. It was unclear how civilians were expected to safely leave Russian-held areas while rocket and shelling of surrounding areas continued, or whether they would be allowed to leave or even heed the government’s appeal. The war’s death toll continued to rise. Five people were killed and eight others were wounded in Russian shelling on Friday in Shiversk and Semikhria in the Donetsk region, its governor, Pavlo Kirilenko, wrote on his Telegram channel on Saturday. In the city of Sloviansk, named as a possible next target of Russia’s attack, rescuers said they pulled a 40-year-old man from the rubble of a building destroyed by shelling on Saturday. Kyrylenko said several people were under the debris. Russian rockets also killed two people and wounded three others on Saturday in the southern city of Kryvyi Rih, according to regional authorities. “They deliberately targeted populated areas,” Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, claimed on Telegram. Kryvyi Rih Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul claimed on Facebook that cluster munitions had been used and urged residents not to approach unknown objects on the streets. In northeastern Ukraine, a Russian rocket attack hit the center of Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv on Saturday, injuring six people, including a 12-year-old girl, authorities said. “An Iskander ballistic missile was likely used in the strike,” the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office said. “One of the rockets hit a two-story building, which led to its destruction. Neighboring houses were damaged.” The city has been targeted throughout the war, including several times in the past week. As survivor Valentina Mirgorodskaya patted a cut on her cheek, first responders cautiously surveyed the building destroyed in Saturday’s strike. “I don’t know,” said Mirgorodksaya. “I just don’t know.” The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevych, said in a Telegram post that six Russian missiles were fired at his city in southern Ukraine, near the Black Sea, but caused no casualties. Russian defense officials claimed on Saturday that their forces destroyed a hangar housing US howitzers in Ukraine, near the city of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk province. There was no immediate response from Ukraine. In other developments: — Ukraine’s national police have announced that they are launching a criminal investigation into the alleged destruction of crops by the Russian military in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region. In a Telegram post, he accused Russian troops of not allowing residents to put out fires in fields and otherwise sabotaging the harvest. “Due to constant shelling, it is extremely difficult to put out (level) fires in the reoccupied and occupied areas, the Russians deliberately do not allow fires to be extinguished,” the police force said. — A civilian woman in separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine was wounded by shelling in the village of Irmino, according to military officials in the Kremlin-backed self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic. — Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Saturday that Russian forces in Ukraine are now armed with “obsolete or unsuitable equipment,” including MT-LB armored vehicles removed from long-term storage. The MT-LB entered service with the Soviet Army in the 1950s and does not provide the same protection as modern armored vehicles. The Russians have also brought Cold War-era tanks out of storage. “While MT-LBS were previously in service in support roles on both sides, Russia has long considered them unsuitable for most front-line infantry transport roles,” the British ministry said on Twitter.
Associated Press reporters across Ukraine contributed. ___ Follow AP’s coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war at
