The death toll in that attack on the town of Chasiv Yar rose to 31 on Monday. The strikes came two days after a Russian rocket attack struck apartment buildings in eastern Ukraine. “I was sitting and talking to my wife,” he said. Neighbors carried him to the basement, where he regained consciousness. Kharkiv resident Alexander Peresolin said the attacks came without warning, with a blast so fierce he lost consciousness. This is absolute terrorism!” Syniehubov said. “All (three were launched) exclusively on civilian objects. Several fires broke out,” Syniehubov wrote.Įarlier, he said one missile destroyed a school, another hit a residential building, while the third landed near warehouse facilities. Several shells hit the yards of private houses. “Only civilian structures - a shopping center and houses of peaceful Kharkiv residents - came under the fire of the Russians. Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram that the shelling came from multiple rocket launchers, and those wounded and hospitalized included children aged 4 and 16. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attacks struck at the points of deployment for Ukraine’s “nationalist battalions.” Kharkiv regional Gov. Russian troops launched three missile strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in an attack one official described as “absolute terrorism.” The passport announcement came hours after Russian shelling of Ukraine’s second-largest city Monday killed at least six people and injured 31, prosecutors and local officials said. Reports have surfaced of Russian authorities confiscating Ukrainian passports from some citizens. 24 invasion of Ukraine, writing an essay last summer claiming that Russians and Ukrainians are one people and attempting to diminish the legitimacy of Ukraine as an independent nation. The Russian president set the stage for such moves even before Russia’s Feb. Russia already annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. The Russian passport move appears to be part of Putin’s political influence strategy, which has also involved introduction of the Russian ruble in occupied territory in Ukraine and could eventually result in the annexation of more Ukrainian territory into the Russian Federation. In late May, three months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the fast-track procedure was also offered to residents of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. “Russia is using the simplified procedure for issuing passports to tighten the noose around the necks of residents of the temporarily occupied territories of our state, forcing them to participate in the criminal activities of the occupying administrations and the Russian army of aggression,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry added in a statement.īetween 2019, when the procedure was introduced for the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk, and this year, more than 720,000 people living in the rebel-held areas in the two regions - about 18% of the population - have received Russian passports. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Klueba said Putin’s signing of a passport decree, which also applies to stateless residents in Ukraine, was an example of his “predatory appetites.” Until recently, only residents of Ukraine’s separatist eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as residents of the southern Zaporizhzhia and the Kherson regions, large parts of which are now under Russian control, were eligible to apply for the simplified passport procedure. Smart Guide to Local Business DirectoryĪs Russian missiles struck a key Ukrainian city, Russian President Vladimir Putin expanded a fast-track procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians on Monday, another effort to strengthen Moscow’s influence over war-torn Ukraine.

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