Russia steps up missile attacks across Ukraine

Ukrainian authorities across the country are reporting new Russian missile strikes and shelling that has killed at least 16 more civilians

Ukrainian authorities across the country reported new Russian missile strikes and shelling on July 16 that killed at least 16 more civilians, deaths that came after Russia's top military announced it was stepping up its onslaught against its neighbour.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave “instructions to further intensify the actions of units in all operational areas, in order to exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime launching massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of settlements in Donbas and other regions.”

The new Russian attacks hit areas in the north, the east and the south of Ukraine. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has seen especially severe bombardments in recent days, with Ukrainian officials and local commanders voicing fears that a second full-scale Russian assault on the northern city may be looming.

At least three civilians were killed and three more were injured on Saturday in a pre-dawn Russian rocket strike on the northern Ukrainian city of Chuhuiv, which is close to Kharkiv and only 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the Russian border, a regional police chief said.

Serhiy Bolvinov, the deputy head of Kharkiv’s regional police force, said the rockets partly destroyed a two-story apartment building.

“Four Russian rockets, presumably fired from around (the Russian city of) Belgorod at night, at about 3:30 a.m., hit a residential building, a school and administrative buildings,” Mr. Bolvinov wrote on Facebook.

“The bodies of three people were found under the rubble. Three more were injured. The victims are civilians,” Bolvinov added.