Rescuers search through rubble of an apartment building destroyed by Russian rockets in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine, July 10, 2022 (Reuters)


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Sunday’s Coverage: Russia Signals Annexation of Kharkiv Region in Northeast


Source: Institute for the Study of War


UPDATE 1554 GMT:

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv, following a visit to nearby towns which were occupied by Russia troops who killed civilians.

Rutte praised Ukraine’s people for their resistance, saying that they “deserved persistent attention of the world” and that The Netherlands will support Ukraine “now and in the years to come”.

This war may last longer than we all hoped or expected. But that does not mean we can sit back and passively watch how it unfolds. We have to stay focused and continue to support Ukraine every day politically, by frequently and openly stating our support, by keeping the pressure on Putin’s Russia, and by strengthening political cooperation with Ukraine bilaterally and multilaterally.

Rutte also spoke about the global food crisis exacerbated by Russia’s blockade of Ukraine ports and destruction of grain warehouses and other infrastructure:

Mountains of Ukrainian grain are waiting for transport across the globe. Many people depend on it for their daily meal and I was really struck by the fact that President Zelenskiy and his team are working very hard to find every route available to get the grain out.

Zelenskiy also spoke with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today about the Russian blockade, following Erdoğan’s conversation with Vladimir Putin.

Turkey has been trying for weeks to broker a resolution so Ukraine’s grain exports can resume.


UPDATE 1529 GMT:

At least six people were killed by Russian rocket attacks on Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine on Monday morning.

The Ukraine Prosecutor General’s office said 31 people, including two children aged 4 and 16, were injured. A shopping center, vehicles, and houses were damaged.

Among those killed were a father and his 17-year-old son, driving to pick up a certificate for his university admission.


UPDATE 1524 GMT:

Vladimir Putin has signed a decree extending a simplified path to Russian citizenship to “all citizens of Ukraine”.

The fast-track procedure had applied to those in the Russian proxy “”Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic” in eastern Ukraine, and then in the Russian-occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in southern Ukraine.


UPDATE 0722 GMT:

Implementing European Union sanctions, Lithuania is expanding restrictions on trade through its territory to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.

A customs spokesperson said goods sanctioned from Monday morning include concrete, wood, alcohol, and alcohol-based industrial chemicals.

Last month, with Lithuania announcing the start of the restrictions, Russian officials threatened retaliation. Lithuanian State and private institutions were hit with denial-of-service cyber-attacks, claimed by the Russian hacker group Killnet.


ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russian forces killed at least 26 civilians in rocket attacks in Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

About 24 people, including a 9-year-old boy, were still trapped on Monday morning, two of whom were talking with rescuers. Nine have been rescued from the rubble.

Russian Uragan rockets demolished three buildings, including a five-story apartment block housing workers at a nearby factory.

A resident described the attacks:

We ran to the basement, there were three hits, the first somewhere in the kitchen.

The second, I do not even remember, there was lightning. We ran towards the second entrance and then straight into the basement. We sat there all night until this morning.

Russian forces have killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians in indiscriminate rocket fire, shelling, and missile strikes since their invasion began on February 24.

Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address to the nation, said “punishment is inevitable for every Russian murderer”.

It was a missile strike. And everyone who gives orders for such strikes, everyone who carries them out targeting our ordinary cities, residential areas, kills absolutely deliberately. After such strikes, the killers will not be able to say they did not know something or did not understand something….

All those who carried out this shelling, other missile strikes, all those who hit our cities with rocket artillery, as is the case with the Kharkiv region, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, Siversk and Vuhledar in the Donetsk region – they will all be found.

Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy’s Chief of Staff, said Russia should be designated as a “state sponsor of terrorism” because of “another terrorist attack”.

Chasiv Yar is about 20 km (12 miles) southeast of the city Kramatorsk, the capital of the Donetsk oblast after Russian proxies seized Donetsk city in 2014.

The Russian offensive in the Donbas area of eastern Ukraine, having occupied all of Luhansk region, is now targeting the Ukrainian-held parts of Donetsk.

Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said Russia is shelling the city of Slovyansk, with a pre-invasion population of 107,000, “day and night”.

Kyrolenko said 591 civilians have been killed and 1,548 injured in the Donetsk region during the invasion.

Two more civilians were killed on Sunday and at least two others injured in Russian missile attacks on the town of Siversk, near the Russian-occupied city of Sievierodonetsk in the Luhansk oblast.

The Ukraine Prosecutor General’s office said yesterday that Russian forces have committed more than 22,500 war crimes and crimes of aggression.