KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Russian forces fired missiles and shells at cities and towns across Ukraine on Saturday after Russia’s military announced it was stepping up its onslaught against its neighbor. Ukraine reported at least 17 more civilians killed.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave “instructions to further intensify the actions of units in all operational areas, in order to exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime launching massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of settlements in the Donbas and other regions,” his ministry said Saturday.
Russia’s military campaign has been focusing on the eastern Donbas, but the new attacks hit areas in the north and south as well. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has seen especially severe bombardments in recent days, with Ukrainian officials and local commanders voicing fears that a second full-scale Russian assault on the northern city may be looming.
At the same time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians not to fall for Russia’s attempts to scare them with warnings of horrendous missile attacks to come, which he said were aimed at dividing Ukrainian society.
“Sometimes, information weapons can do more than regular weapons,” he said in his nightly video address to the nation.
“It’s clear that no Russian missiles or artillery will be able to break our unity or lead us away from our path toward a democratic, independent Ukraine,” he said. “And it is also clear that Ukrainian unity cannot be broken by lies or intimidation, fakes or conspiracy theories.”
In the Kharkiv region, at least three civilians were killed and three more were injured Saturday in a pre-dawn Russian strike on the city of Chuhuiv, which is only 75 miles from the Russian border, the police said.
Serhiy Bolvinov, the deputy head of the Kharkiv region’s police force, said four missiles presumably fired from the Russian city of Belgorod hit an apartment building, a school and administrative buildings at about 3:30 a.m. Writing on Facebook, he said the three bodies were found under the rubble.
Lyudmila Krekshina, who lives in the apartment building that was hit, said a husband and wife were killed, as well as an elderly man on the ground floor.
Another resident said she was lucky to have survived.
“I was going to run and hide in the bathroom. I didn’t make it, and that’s what saved me,” said Valentina Bushuyeva. Pointing up at her destroyed apartment, she said: “There’s the bathroom — explosion. Kitchen — half a room. And I survived because I stayed put.”
In the neighboring Sumy region, one civilian was killed and at least seven were injured after Russians opened mortar and artillery fire on three towns and villages not far from the Russian border, regional governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky said Saturday.
In the embattled eastern Donetsk region, seven civilians were killed and 14 wounded in the last 24 hours in Russian attacks on cities, its governor said Saturday.
Later in the day, on the outskirts of Pokrovsk, a city in the Donetsk region, a woman said a neighbor was killed by a rocket attack Saturday afternoon. Tetiana Pashko said she herself suffered a cut on her leg and one of her family’s dogs was killed.
She said her 35-year-old neighbor, who was killed in her front yard, had evacuated earlier this year as authorities had requested but had returned home after being unable to support herself.
“We can rebuild, but we can’t bring her back,” said another neighbor, Olha Rusanova.
