On Wednesday, July 6, Russian forces continued to advance in Donbass. Residents of Sloviansk (Moscow's next target) are asked to evacuate due to intense shelling.
"My main advice: evacuate!" Residents of Sloviansk were told Tuesday evening by Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Governor of Donestk Region. He added that there had been no days without bombardment. A few hours before, he had made the announcement that there were two people who died and seven others injured in strikes that notably targeted the city's market.
Rouslan, a shopkeeper, was interviewed by AFP just two hours after the bombing. He struggled to keep his tears from bursting as he watched the shop burn. Russian forces had committed a "genocide," he claimed, claiming that such bombings were meant to "scare people into fleeing the city."
"Once more, the Russians have targeted places where civilians gather," Pavlo Kyrylenko said. This is pure terrorism," Governor Pavlo Cyrylenko declared.
Russian forces now control most of the Lugansk area and want to do the same with Donetsk. This will allow them to occupy Donbass which pro-Russian separatists have partially controlled since 2014.
Sergiy Gaidai, Lugansk region governor, stated Tuesday evening that heavy fighting was taking place [...] close to Lysychansk. Russian forces "constantly try to build passages in order to transfer even more material to the Donetsk area."
Sloviansk was home to 100,000 people before the war. Kramatorsk became the new central points of fighting. The Russian troops were approximately ten kilometers away from Siversk (which they had been shelling for several hours) and about fifty kilometers away from Sloviansk on Tuesday.
Moscow announced Tuesday that it was opening an investigation into torture suffered by its soldiers captured by Ukrainian forces during a prisoner exchange with Kyiv. Russia and Ukraine, who have both conducted several prisoner swaps, accuse one another of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners.
According to the ministry, the Russian Ministry of Defense also accused Ukrainian nationalists in Donetsk of planning "a provocation using the use of toxic substances". Large quantities of chlorine were brought to a mined filter station by the ministry. He said that the Ukrainian army had used chemical infrastructure to build its troops and weapons, creating the "preconditions for disasters that could result in the deaths of thousands of civilians."
This is why a two-day conference held in Lugano (Switzerland), on Tuesday evening, was concluded. It was organized to help draw the outlines for the reconstruction of Ukraine. Kyiv estimates that it will cost 750 billion dollars. .
Tuesday evening's statement by allied countries, international institutions, and the private sector stated that they "commit fully to supporting Ukraine on its journey", and called for a transparent and accountable recovery process. In a country that is plagued by corruption, the use of these billions in dollars can be a concern.
