Russia shells Ukraine's Donetsk after seizing Luhansk region

A rescuer and local residents carry books from a damaged school after it was hit by a rocket in Kharkiv, on Monday. Pic/AFP

Russian forces struck targets across Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region on Tuesday to prepare the path for an expected armoured thrust to try to take more territory as the five-month-old war entered a new phase.

The strikes, reported by the region's local governor and Russian military, followed Moscow's capture of the city of Lysychansk on Sunday, a move that handed it total control of the Luhansk region, one of its main war aims. Taking full control of Donetsk, the other region in Donbas, that has become the stage of the biggest battle in Europe in generations, is another goal Moscow's "special military operation."

Ukrainian forces took up new defensive lines in Donetsk on Tuesday, according to Serhiy Gaidai, the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk. Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of neighbouring Donetsk, said his region had been hit overnight. "Sloviansk and Kramatorsk came under shelling. They are now also the main line of assault for the enemy from the Lyman direction... there is no safe place without shelling in the Donetsk region," he said.

Russian lawmakers on Tuesday gave the first stamp of approval to two bills to authorise the government to oblige businesses to supply the military with goods and employees to work overtime to support its invasion of Ukraine.

Finland, Sweden sign protocol

NATO's 30 allies signed an accession protocol for Finland and Sweden on Tuesday to allow them to join the nuclear-armed alliance once allied parliaments ratify the decision, the most significant expansion of the alliance since the mid-1990s.

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