Russia’s top diplomat warned Ukraine against provoking World War III and said the threat of a nuclear conflict “should not be underestimated” as his country unleashed attacks against rail and fuel installations far from the front lines of Moscow’s new eastern offensive.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told state-controlled media earlier said that if World War III were to take place, it would involve nuclear weapons and be destructive.
The British Defense Ministry has said that Russian forces had taken the Ukrainian city of Kreminna in the Luhansk region after days of street–to–street fighting.
“The city of Kreminna has reportedly fallen and heavy fighting is reported south of Izium as Russian forces attempt to advance towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north and east,” the British military said in a tweet. It did not say how it knew the city, 575 kilometers (355 miles) southeast of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, had fallen.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces were shelling Kharkiv, the country’s second–largest city, as they fought to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which comprise the Donbas in Ukraine’s industrial heartland, and establish a land corridor to Crimea.
One person has died and another wounded in a Russian missile attack on Zaporizhzhia.
According to Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, two of the guided missiles hit the site of an industrial enterprise in the region and one exploded prior to reaching its target.
