Deadly Russian shelling reported in Ukraine’s east, despite reports of taking an ‘operational pause’, regional governor says.

Here are the latest updates on Saturday, July 9:

Zelenskyy has met a delegation of senior officials from France, led by the president of the French Senate, Gerard Larcher.

During the meeting in Kyiv, Zelenskyy thanked France and in particular, President Emmanuel Macron, for supporting Ukraine’s bid to join the EU.

“I would also like to thank France for supporting Ukraine’s status as a candidate for membership in the European Union. And this was also influenced by the recent visit of respected state leaders, among whom was President Emmanuel Macron; I would also like to thank him personally for his high-level support for Ukraine’s candidacy,” Zelenskyy said.

A Russian rocket has hit a residential building in the centre of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, injuring six people, according to regional authorities.

“The enemy rocket hit near the two-storey residential building, the building is partially ruined. The total area of destruction is around 400 square metres (4,305 square feet),” Yevgen Vasylenko, spokesperson for the Department of Emergency Situations in Kharkiv Oblast said.

“Representatives of the emergency services and national police have arrived at the site. Two men, a woman and a 12-year-old child were rescued from the ruins.”

Russian forces are managing to “raise true hell” in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland despite reports of them taking an operational pause, a regional governor has said.

Deadly Russian shelling was reported in Ukraine’s east and south.

The governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai said Russia launched more than 20 artillery, mortar and rocket attacks in the province overnight and its forces were pressing toward the border with neighbouring Donetsk.

“We are trying to contain the Russians’ armed formations along the entire front line,” Haidai wrote on Telegram.

Russia has warned Lithuania and the European Union that it could adopt “harsh measures” against them if the transit of some goods to and from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad did not resume.

“If the situation does not stabilise in the coming days, then Russia will take harsh measures against Lithuania and the European Union,” Maria Zakharova, spokesperson of the Russian foreign ministry, said in a statement. “The issue has taken too long to resolve.”

Lithuania has banned the transit of goods subject to EU sanctions across its territory to and from the Baltic exclave. Russia has pledged to retaliate.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said that sanctions on Moscow are working, and echoed calls for more deliveries of high-precision Western weapons.

“Russians desperately try to lift those sanctions which proves that they do hurt them. Therefore, sanctions must be stepped up until Putin drops his aggressive plans or simply loses resources to fill or execute them,” he told a forum in Croatia by videolink.

Russian troops have begun a “relentless” shelling of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, according to Ukrainian officials.

“The entire frontline is under relentless shelling,” Donetsk military administration chief, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said in a Telegram message.

Having endured long battles to capture cities in the neighbouring Lugansk region, Russia is now seeking to push deeper into Donetsk to consolidate its hold over the entire Donbas region.

Ukrainian officials have said five people were killed in the Donetsk region in the past 24 hours while seven were injured.

“The entire frontline is under relentless shelling,” Donetsk military administration chief, Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a Telegram message on Friday night.

He said the city of Sloviansk, on which Moscow’s troops have now set their sights, is being “shelled day and night”.

The first batch of up to 10,000 inexperienced Ukrainian military recruits set to train in the UK over the coming months has started drills, according to the Ministry of Defence.

The new British-led programme involves 1,050 UK service personnel training the Ukrainian volunteers, who have little to no military experience, in England for several weeks.

The crash course is based on the UK’s basic soldier training, covering weapons handling, battlefield first aid, fieldcraft, patrol tactics and the laws around armed conflict.

US President Joe Biden has called the sister of Paul Whelan, an American who is serving 16 years in a Russian prison on espionage charges that he has denied.

The US leader told Elizabeth Whelan that “he is committed to bringing Paul home as soon as possible,” a White House official quoted by the AFP news agency said.

Whelan was convicted on spying charges in Russia in 2020 and was sentenced to 16 years of hard labour.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he discussed Russia’s aggression in Ukraine during talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during which he also raised concerns about Beijing’s alignment with Moscow.

Blinken made the comments at a news conference on the Indonesian island of Bali after talks with Wang that lasted a little more than five hours.

Ukraine has not used advanced US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to attack Russian targets outside of Ukraine territory, according to a senior US defence official disputing Russian accusations.

“The Russian claims about using HIMARS to strike outside of Ukrainian territory – those claims are false,” the official told Reuters news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Ukraine is using those capabilities to fight the battle that its forces are facing, and they are using them effectively in that battle.”

Russia is moving reserve forces from across the country and assembling them near Ukraine for future offensive operations, according to British military intelligence.

A large proportion of the new Russian infantry units are probably deploying with MT-LB armoured vehicles taken from long-term storage as their primary transport, the UK’s Ministry of Defence tweeted in a regular bulletin.

Russia is moving reserve forces from across the country and assembling them near Ukraine for future offensive operations.

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) July 9, 2022

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bali after a G20 ministerial meeting on the Indonesian island where the top US diplomat led efforts to pressure Russia over its war in Ukraine.

Blinken is expected to repeat warnings to China not to support Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine and the two sides will address contentious issues that include Taiwan, China’s extensive South China Sea claims, Beijing’s moves to expand its influence throughout the Pacific, human rights, and trade tariffs.

Ukraine has urged its allies to send more weapons as its forces dig in, saying that a turning point has been reached in the war.

Mykhailo Podolyak, the Ukrainian chief negotiator in stalled talks with Moscow, said Russia’s military had been forced to take an operational pause due to losses and to resupply.

“It is clear that they have to redeploy things, bring forward new troops and weaponry, and this is very good. A certain turning point is beginning to take shape because we are proving we are going to attack storage facilities and command centres,” Podolyak told Ukraine’s 24 Channel television.

US President Joe Biden has thanked staff at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency for warning the world about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine.

Marking the CIA’s 75th anniversary, Biden said, “It was thanks to the incredible work of our intelligence professionals that we were able to forewarn the world what Vladimir Putin was planning in Ukraine.”

He added, “Exposing Putin’s playbook punched a gigantic hole in the pretence, and discredited his lies about what we were doing in Ukraine.”