Report: Russian attacks kill 10 in east, south
U.S. condemns `war crime' deportations
Russian missile strikes in Ukraine's southern city of Mykolaiv killed at least five people, Ukrainian authorities said Wednesday, part of a series of artillery and missile barrages across the country in the past day that left at least 10 dead and dozens wounded in eastern and southern regions.
While Mykolaiv has repeatedly been the target of Russian fire in recent days, Russian missiles also struck the city of Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday, an attack that could signal Moscow's determination to hold onto territory in Ukraine's south as it aims to fully conquer the east. Ukrainian forces have stepped up actions in a bid to reclaim more territory in the south.
Also Wednesday, the top U.S. diplomat accused Russia of committing a “war crime” by forcibly deporting hundreds of thousands to Russia with the intention of changing Ukraine's demographic makeup.
Some of the civilian deaths occurred in the Donetsk province, which is part of a region the Kremlin is intent on capturing. The city of Bakhmut faced particularly heavy shelling as the current focus of Russia's offensive, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
In the adjacent Luhansk province, which Russian and separatist forces have all but conquered, Ukrainian soldiers battled to retain control of two outlying villages as they came under Russian shelling, Gov. Serhiy Haidai said.
Luhansk and Donetsk together make up the Donbas region, a mostly Russianspeaking region of steel factories, mines and other industries. The Russians are “deliberately turning Donbas into ashes, and there will be just no people left on the territories captured,” Haidai said.
With Russia's sights set on the east, the Ukrainian military has tried to reclaim a captured city in the south.
More Ukrainian missiles rocked Nova Kakhovka, a city east of the Black Sea port of Kherson, on Wednesday night, a day after the Ukrainian military claimed to have used missiles to destroy a Russian ammunition depot there. Russia said a mineral fertilizer storage facility had exploded.
More ammunition depots were hit late Wednesday, regional officials said. Russian artillery also rained down in northeast Ukraine, where the regional governor, Oleg Syniehubov, accused Russian forces of trying to “terrorize civilians” in Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meanwhile, strongly condemned the “unlawful transfer and deportation of protected persons” from areas in Ukraine that Russia now controls.
“Russian authorities must release those detained and allow Ukrainian citizens forcibly removed or coerced into leaving their country the ability to promptly and safely return home,” Blinken said in a statement.
Blinken said an estimated 900,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens — including 260,000 children — have been interrogated, detained and deported to Russia, with some sent to the country's far east.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian and Russian officials met face-to-face Wednesday for the first time in months. Military delegations from the two countries, along with Turkish and U.N. officials, discussed a potential deal to get grain out of Ukraine's blockaded and mined ports through the Black Sea.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the two sides took “a critical step forward” toward an agreement.
In other developments: • The leader of a Moscowbacked separatist government in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk province said foreign fighters convicted of terrorism and trying to overturn constitutional order for helping Ukrainian troops have appealed their death sentences. If the court rejects the appeals, two British men and a Moroccan could face a firing squad. Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin said about 100 members of a Ukrainian National Guard battalion captured after the fall of Mariupol were scheduled to appear before a court soon.
• Pushilin also announced that North Korea has joined Syria in recognizing the independence of his “people's republic.”
• The United Nations refugee agency reported that most Ukrainian refugees want to return home but plan to wait until the war subsides. Nearly two-thirds plan to stay put in their host countries for now.