Russia stepping up attacks ahead of EU membership decision: Kyiv

KYIV • Russian forces have stepped up their shelling in Ukraine's Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, Kyiv said yesterday, after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned to expect greater hostilities ahead of a historic European Union decision on Ukraine's bid for candidate status.

Nearly four months after Russia launched an invasion of his country, Mr Zelensky said in his evening address on Sunday there had been "few such fateful decisions for Ukraine" as the one it expects from the EU this week.

"Obviously, we expect Russia to intensify hostile activity this week... We are preparing. We are ready," he said.

Leaders of the EU's 27 member states will discuss at a summit on Thursday and Friday whether to add Ukraine to the list of countries vying for membership.

On the ground, Russia appeared to be making some battlefield advances in the east. In its daily update yesterday, Ukraine's presidency reported heavier Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region in the north-east.

In the Donetsk region, the intensity of the attacks "is growing along the entire front line", it said, leaving at least one person dead and injuring seven people, including a child.

Fighting also continued in the key industrial city of Sievierodonetsk in the east, with Ukraine saying it had lost control of the adjacent village of Metyolkine. "Unfortunately, we do not control Metyolkine any more. And the enemy continues to build up its reserves," Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said in a statement on social media. A chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk where hundreds of civilians are said to be sheltering was being shelled constantly, he said.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg, meanwhile, warned on Sunday that the war could grind on for years, and urged Western countries to be ready to offer Ukraine long-term military, political and economic aid.

Ukraine has repeatedly urged Western countries to step up their deliveries of arms, despite warnings from nuclear-armed Russia that it could trigger wider conflict.

Russia's Defence Ministry said on Sunday it had launched missile strikes during the past 24 hours, with one attack on a top-level Ukrainian military meeting near the city of Dnipro, killing "more than 50 generals and officers".

It said it also targeted a building housing Western-provided weapons in Mykolaiv, destroying Ukrainian artillery and armoured vehicles. The city is a key target for Russia as it lies on the route to the strategic port of Odesa.

With Russia maintaining a blockade of Odesa that has trapped grain supplies, residents have turned their attention to rallying the home-front effort.

Explosions rocked Odesa yesterday after the Russia-installed head of the annexed Crimea peninsula said Ukrainian forces had attacked drilling platforms owned by a Crimean oil and gas company.

Mr Oleksiy Honcharenko, a lawmaker from Odesa, said the city appeared to have come under attack in what he described as "revenge for our morning shelling of oil rigs near Crimea".

Mr Sergei Aksyonov, who was installed by Moscow as head of the Crimea region that Russia annexed in 2014, said drilling platforms owned by the Chernomorneftegaz energy company in the Black Sea off Ukraine's south coast had been attacked. Three people were wounded and a search was under way for seven workers, he said on messaging app Telegram.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS