SLOVIANSK, July 6(ABC): Fighting raged on Tuesday in and around Ukraine s eastern Donbas region as Russian troops tried to maintain a series of battlefield gains, while NATO pressed ahead with Finland and Sweden s momentous membership bids.
Moscow s forces — buoyed by seizing several cities in the Donbas in recent weeks — continued to press west, pounding their next key target, the city of Sloviansk, with “massive” shelling, the city s mayor said.
At least two people were killed and seven others wounded in Russian strikes targeting its central market, following several days of similarly deadly bombing there.
AFP journalists on the ground saw rockets hit the marketplace and several adjacent streets, as firefighters scrambled to put out the resulting fires in the city, which had a pre-war population of around 100,000.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, which includes Sloviansk, accused Russia of “intentionally targeting places where civilians assemble”.
“This is terrorism pure and simple,” he said on Telegram.
In Moscow, the defence ministry reported that Russian forces had also targeted the northeastern city of Kharkiv with “high-precision” weapons over the past 24 hours, claiming to have killed up to 150 Ukrainian servicemen.
Several other regions were also hit with missiles and artillery, Kyiv reported.
Meanwhile, Russia said it was investigating the torture of Russian soldiers held prisoner in Ukraine that were recently released as part of a prisoner swap.