Search for survivors after shelling kills 10 RETURN TO KHARKIV
At least 10 people including children have been killed by shelling in a Russian-occupied town in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, a local Kremlin-installed official said.
Russian emergency services were shifting through the rubble in opes of saving civilians trapped under the debris of their homes in Tokmak, in a part of southern Ukraine that Moscow has illegally annexed from Kyiv, according to Yevhen Balitsky.
The Tokmak municipal administration said the shelling struck three apartment blocks on Friday evening.
Five people were pulled alive from the rubble, Balitsky said, and a further 13 people were taken to hospital.
A Ukrainian rocket also struck a machine-building plant in Russianoccupied Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, injuring three civilians, according to Vladimir Rogov, a Moscow-based official who helps set
Russian policy in annexed territories. Meanwhile, the UK and the United States have announced that new aluminium, copper and nickel produced by Russia will no longer be traded at the world’s two largest metal exchanges.
The London Metal Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange will now ban Russian exports in an effort to hinder one of the country’s biggest sources of revenue, the Treasury said.
Both exchanges help to set global benchmark prices for the trade of base metals. Any existing stock of Russian metal will be exempt from the measures to avoid destabilising the market.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said last night: “Disabling Putin’s capacity to wage his illegal war in Ukraine is better achieved when we act alongside our allies.”
Russia has ramped up attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, completely destroying several power stations and killing civilians with bombs, drones and missile strikes in scenes reminiscent of the fullscale invasion two years ago.
Ukraine’s drastic shortage of air defence and ammunition has left cities vulnerable – nowhere more so than Kharkiv, located just 18 miles from the Russian border. Top Ukrainian officials have gone so far as to warn that Putin may be gearing up for a renewed assault on the north-eastern city, which his forces failed to seize in 2022.
Nearly all power-generating capacity in Kharkiv has been destroyed since March 22 when Russia started targeting energy infrastructure again. The city, still home to 1.3 million people, woke to the sound of 10 missiles hitting a power station early on Thursday morning; at the same time a huge thermal power plant near Kyiv was left in ruins.
President Volodymyr Zelensky voiced fears this week that a new Russian offensive could target Kharkiv, adding: “We are doing everything we can to prevent that from happening.”
On Tuesday, he inspected the deep fortifications dug to the north of the city, calling once more for US aid to restart – warning his country would “lose the war” if the Congress in Washington DC continues to block a $60 billion aid package.
When Russian troops attempted to seize Kharkiv in early-2022 they were repelled by fierce resistance and resorted to squatting on the outskirts, shelling the city relentlessly until the Ukrainian counteroffensive of that autumn pushed them back. But the city is no stranger to invaders: between 1941 and 1943, it saw fierce battles between Soviet and Nazi armies and changed hands no fewer than four times.
“The terrain here is hilly and easy to protect,” said Nataliya Zubar, a Kharkiv activist and chairwoman of the human rights group Maidan Monitoring. The Russian offensive of 2022, she pointed out, repeated all the mistakes of the Second World War. In any case, Zubar stressed, she was not worried about a renewed assault on the city. “It would require a hell of