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KYIV, July 17 (Reuters) - Russia is preparing for the next stage of its offensive in Ukraine, a Ukrainian military official said, after Moscow said its forces would step up military operations in "all operational areas".
As Western deliveries of long-range arms begin to help Ukraine on the battlefield, Russian rockets and missiles have pounded cities in strikes that Kyiv says have killed dozens in recent days.
"It is not only missile strikes from the air and sea," Vadym Skibitskyi, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, said on Saturday. "We can see shelling along the entire line of contact, along the entire front line. There is an active use of tactical aviation and attack helicopters.
"Clearly preparations are now underway for the next stage of the offensive.”
The Ukrainian military said Russia appeared to be regrouping units for an offensive toward Sloviansk, a symbolically important city held by Ukraine in the eastern region of Donetsk.
The British defence ministry said on Sunday that Russia was also reinforcing defences across areas it occupies in southern Ukraine after pressure from Ukrainian forces and pledges from Ukrainian leaders to force Russia out. read more
Ukraine says at least 40 people have been killed in Russian shelling of urban areas since Thursday as the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 24 intensifies.
Dozens of relatives and local residents attended the funeral of 4-year-old Liza Dmytrieva in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Sunday. The girl was killed in a missile strike on central Vinnytsia on Thursday that killed 24 people, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Rockets hit the northeastern town of Chuhuiv in Kharkiv region on Friday night, killing three people including a 70-year-old woman and wounding three others, said regional Governor Oleh Synehubov. read more
"Three people lost their lives, why? What for? Because Putin went mad?" said Raisa Shapoval, 83, a distraught resident sitting in the ruins of her home.
To the south, more than 50 Russian Grad rockets pounded the city of Nikopol on the Dnipro River, killing two people who were found in the rubble, said Governor Valentyn Reznichenko.
EIGHT YEARS ON
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia was continuing to sow grief and death on Ukrainian soil eight years on from the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine by what international investigators have said was a Russian surface-to-air missile likely fired by Russian-backed militia in the region.
"But nothing will go unpunished!" he said. "Every criminal will be brought to justice!"
Moscow, which calls the invasion a "special military operation" to demilitarise its neighbour and root out nationalists, says it uses high-precision weapons to degrade Ukraine's military infrastructure and protect its own security. Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians.
Kyiv and the West say the conflict is an unprovoked attempt to reconquer a country that broke free of Moscow's rule with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered military units to intensify operations to prevent Ukrainian strikes on eastern Ukraine and other areas held by Russia, where he said Kyiv could hit civilian infrastructure or residents, according to a statement from the ministry.
His remarks appeared to be a direct response to what Kyiv says is a string of successful strikes carried out on 30 Russian logistics and ammunitions hubs, using several multiple launch rocket systems recently supplied by the West.
The strikes are causing havoc with Russian supply lines and have significantly reduced Russia's offensive capability, Ukraine's defence ministry spokesperson said on Friday. read more
Russian-backed separatists said Ukraine had hit the town of Alchevsk, east of Sloviansk, with six U.S.-made HIMARS rockets on Saturday. The self-styled Luhansk People's Republic said the strikes had killed two civilians and damaged a bus depot, health camp and apartments.
Ukraine's armed forces said they had struck the bus depot because they had information it was being used to house Russian troops.
The Russian defence ministry said its forces had destroyed a launch ramp and reloading vehicle for one of the HIMARS systems deployed near the eastern city of Pokrovsk.
It also said they had shot down a Ukrainian MI-17 helicopter near Sloviansk and a SU-25 aircraft in the Kharkiv region further north and destroyed a depot in Odesa in southern Ukraine that stored Harpoon anti-ship missiles from NATO countries.
Reporting by Reuters bureaux Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Philippa Fletcher Editing by William Mallard and Frances Kerry
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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