In its regular Facebook update, the army’s general staff said Russian troops tried to push towards Kramatorsk, one of two major cities in eastern Donetsk province that remain under Ukrainian control, but “completely failed and retreated chaotically to previous positions their”. In the same post, the military said Russian forces had staged an unsuccessful attack on Bakhmut, a strategic town in the Donetsk region, the capture of which would have paved the way for Russia to seize Kramatorsk and Ukraine’s de facto administrative capital. Sloviansk. The Donetsk region is one of two provinces that make up Donbas, where fighting has largely been concentrated in recent months after Kremlin forces retreated from the capital, Kyiv. Russian officials announced the full capture of the Luhansk region, the second of the two, early last month, although its Ukrainian governor has repeatedly claimed that Kiev’s forces are holding out in a small area near the regional border. In the same update, the military claimed that Russia tried and failed to break through Ukrainian defense lines in the northern region of Kharkiv, home to Ukraine’s second-largest city, but were “fiercely confronted and pushed back.” Meanwhile, Russia’s FSB, the main successor agency to the KGB, said it had foiled a “sabotage and terrorist attack” on an oil pipeline in Russia’s southern Volgograd region, which it blamed on two Russian citizens colluding with Ukrainian security forces . The claims could not be immediately verified. Elsewhere, Russian and Ukrainian officials traded more accusations on Monday over the new bombing of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, with each side claiming the other was responsible for attacks that have raised fears of catastrophe. The press office of the Kremlin-backed administration in Enerhodar, the Russian-controlled town where the plant is located, told the Interfax news agency that Ukrainian forces were carrying out “massive shelling” of the facility, as well as residential and industrial areas of Enerhodar. According to the statement, the shelling came from nearby Nikopoli, a Ukrainian-controlled city that overlooks the plant across the Dnieper River. The mayor of Nicopolis later said that the Russians were shelling Enerhodar themselves. Mayor Yevhen Yevtushenko and other municipal authorities in Nikopoli have repeatedly accused Russian troops stationed at the plant of shelling the city, knowing that Ukrainian forces there were unlikely to fight back. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his call for new sanctions against Moscow and its nuclear industry in response to the situation. He described the actions of Russian forces there as “nuclear blackmail” that can encourage malign actors around the world. As Russian forces continued their artillery barrage around Ukraine, at least three Ukrainian civilians were killed and 20 others wounded, Ukrainian officials said. The deaths and 13 of the wounded were attributed to Russian shelling that hit towns and villages in the Donetsk region, regional officials said. In the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, seven civilians were injured by Russian shelling that hit residential buildings and an area near a bus stop. Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said an 80-year-old woman was among the injured. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Monday that Russian warplanes struck Ukrainian army positions in the southern Kherson region and the Donetsk region. He added that the Russian air force also struck a facility in the Kharkiv region, killing at least 100 and injuring 50 “mercenaries” from Poland and Germany. His claims could not be independently verified. Speaking at the opening of an arms exhibition outside Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the army, which he said was “liberating Donbas step by step”. He also vowed to expand arms sales to Russian allies, whom he praised for continuing to provide steadfast support to Moscow in the face of Western pressure. For its part, the Ukrainian military claimed to have destroyed more than 10 Russian warehouses of ammunition and military equipment last week. In other developments on Monday: — Lawyers for American basketball star Brittney Griner have appealed her nine-year sentence in Russian prison for drug possession, Russian news agencies reported. Griner, a Phoenix Mercury center and two-time Olympic gold medalist, was sentenced on August 4. She was arrested in February at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport after vapor containers containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage. — Ukraine’s parliament has extended the country’s martial law and general conscription for another 90 days. — Zelensky fired the heads of three regional branches of Ukraine’s top security service, SBU, in Kyiv, Lviv and Tarnopil regions. Zelenskyy’s office did not elaborate on the reasons behind the move. Last month, he fired SBU chief Ivan Bakanov and a prosecutor general, saying their departments had too many people who faced charges of collaborating with the Russians. — The trial of five European men arrested in eastern Ukraine has begun in a court run by Kremlin-backed separatists, Russian media reported. Three of the five – a Swede, a Croat and a Briton – could face the death penalty on charges they served as mercenaries and “took training to seize power” under the laws of the self-proclaimed, unrecognized People’s Republic of Donetsk, Russia state media reported. The remaining two, British, face prison terms. — A British military reconnaissance aircraft violated Russian airspace, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The ministry said in a statement that Russian air defense forces in Russia’s Arctic northwest spotted the plane heading towards the border from the direction of the Barents Sea. A Russian fighter identified the aircraft as a British Air Force RC-135 and forced it to leave Russian territory, the ministry said. — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Berlin will not support several European countries that have called for an EU-wide move to stop issuing tourist visas to Russian citizens. Nations that support such a ban say Russians should not be able to vacation in Europe while Moscow wages war in Ukraine. Finland and Denmark want an EU decision, and some EU countries bordering Russia already do not issue visas to Russians. “This is not the war of the Russian people. It’s (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war and we have to be very clear about that,” Scholz said.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war at
