Ukraine

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian shelling of Ukraine’s second-largest city killed at least three people on Monday and injured scores, including children, the local administrator said. The shelling came just hours after three missile strikes on Kharkiv which the official described as “absolute terrorism.”

Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram that the shelling came from multiple rocket launchers, and those hospitalized for injuries suffered in the attacks included children aged 4 and 16.

LUGANSK, July 10. /TASS/: Ukraine’s armed forces again shelled the city of Alchevsk in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) on Sunday using HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems supplied by the US, the LPR’s mission at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of ceasefire (JCCC) reported on its Telegram channel.

According to it, four missiles were launched from the direction of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) at 01:10 Moscow time.

On Saturday, Alchevsk was shelled with six HIMARS rockets. This was the first shelling of this city by the Ukrainian forces since 2014.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian rockets hit the eastern Ukraine town of Chasiv Yar, destroying a five-story apartment building and killing at least 10 people, officials said Sunday.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said about three dozen people could be trapped in the rubble. Rescuers have made contact with two people who are under the wreckage, he said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian emergency services initially gave a death toll of six, but later said it has risen to 10. They did not say how many people may still be in the rubble.

ZHURIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Oleksandr Chubuk’s warehouse should be empty, awaiting the new harvest, with his supply of winter wheat already shipped abroad. Instead, his storage bins in central Ukraine are piled high with grain he cannot ship out because of the war with Russia.

The green spikes of wheat are already ripening. Soon, the horizon will look like the Ukrainian flag, a sea of gold beneath a blue sky. Chubuk expects to reap 500 tons, but for the first time in his 30 years as a farmer, he’s uncertain about what to do with it.

ZHURIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Oleksandr Chubuk’s warehouse should be empty, awaiting the new harvest, with his supply of winter wheat already shipped abroad. Instead, his storage bins in central Ukraine are piled high with grain he cannot ship out because of the war with Russia.

The green spikes of wheat are already ripening. Soon, the horizon will look like the Ukrainian flag, a sea of gold beneath a blue sky. Chubuk expects to reap 500 tons, but for the first time in his 30 years as a farmer, he’s uncertain about what to do with it.

KOSTIANTYNIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — By the time the Russians invaded, 43-year-old Mufti Said Ismahilov — one of the Muslim spiritual leaders of Ukraine — had already resolved that he would step aside from his religious duties to fight for his country.

At the end of last year, as warnings of an imminent attack grew louder, Ismahilov began training with a local territorial defense battalion. By then he had served as a mufti for thirteen years.

DONETSK, July 9. /TASS/: Three service members of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have been killed and five more wounded in the past 24 hours, fighting the Ukrainian forces, Eduard Basurin, deputy chief of the DPR People’s Militia, said on Saturday.

"We regret to inform you that three defenders of the Donetsk People's Republic were killed and five more were wounded in the line of military duty, fighting for DPR independence," the press service of the DPR defense ministry quotes his statement on its Telegram channel.

KYIV, July 9 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday dismissed several of Kyiv's senior envoys abroad including the country's outspoken ambassador to Germany, the presidential website said.

In a decree that gave no reason for the move, Zelenskiy 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.

KYIV, July 9 (Reuters) - Ukrainian defenders battled on Saturday to contain Russian forces along several fronts, officials said, as the United States urged China to align itself with the West in opposing the invasion following an ill-tempered G20 meeting.

A missile strike on the northeastern city of Kharkiv wounded three civilians, its governor said, though Russia's main attacks appeared focused southeast of there in Luhansk and Donetsk.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — 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 said Saturday, while the government in Kyiv urged people in Russian-occupied southern areas to evacuate “by all possible means” ahead of a Ukrainian offensive.

Deadly Russian shelling was reported in Ukraine’s east and south.