DNIPRO, Ukraine — Russia is “exerting intense fire” along a 300-mile battlefront in Ukraine’s east, the embattled nation’s military said Thursday, as the head of the United Nations landed in Kyiv for a high-profile visit amid escalating threats by Moscow to cut off energy supplies to more European countries.
Ukraine said it intercepted attacks in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, while Russia’s Defense Ministry made unverified claims that it had struck overnight at military targets in Barvinkove and Ivanivka, settlements in the Kharkiv region, which has been the site of near-constant shelling over more than two months of war.
The growing Russian assaults, now shifted away from Kyiv as Moscow tries to secure a large swath of land across southern and eastern Ukraine, come as hostilities reach new levels not only on the ground but diplomatically.
