Moscow steps up assault on eastern Ukraine

Deminers at the site of a reported cluster munition fall in a residential area of Kharkiv Monday. Pic/AFP

Russia unleashed ground forces, air strikes and artillery as it pressed ahead with a grinding offensive designed to complete its capture of eastern Ukraine, but Kyiv said its troops were putting up fierce resistance and holding the line.

Heavy fighting was reported on Tuesday in frontline towns near the eastern city of Donetsk, where Ukrainian officials said Russian troops were launching waves of attacks as they tried to seize control of the industrialised Donbas region.

"The situation in the region is tense - shelling is constant throughout the front line ... The enemy is also using air strikes a great deal," Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, one of two that makes up Donbas, told Ukrainian television.

‘Zelensky's demand irrational'

The Kremlin on Tuesday dismissed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's call for a Western travel ban on all Russians as irrational, saying that Europe would ultimately have to decide if it wanted to pay the bills for Zelensky's "whims."

More grain ships leave

Two more grain-carrying ships left Ukraine's Chornomorsk port on Tuesday, Turkey's defence ministry said, as part of a deal to unblock Ukrainian sea exports, bringing the total to leave the country under a safe passage deal to 12.

10.5 mn
No of people who have crossed the border from Ukraine

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