(Reuters) – Rescuers picked through the rubble of an apartment building in eastern Ukraine searching for two dozen people, including a child, feared trapped after a Russian rocket strike on the five-storey building killed 15 people.
FIGHTING
* Donetsk regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on the Telegram messaging service that a Russian missile had struck Druzhkivka, a town behind the front line, and reported shelling of other population centres.
* Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Telegram that Russian forces were gathering in the area of the village of Bilohorivka, about 50 km (30 miles) east of Sloviansk, from where they were shelling surrounding settlements and carrying out air strikes.
* Ukraine’s deputy prime minister on Sunday urged civilians in the Russian-occupied southern region of Kherson to evacuate as Ukraine’s armed forces were preparing a counter-attack there.
* Russia’s Tass news agency cited pro-Russian separatists as saying Ukrainian forces had fired an artillery barrage into residential districts of the city of Donetsk.
* Russian forces struck two Ukrainian army hangars storing U.S.-produced artillery pieces near Kostantinovka in the Donetsk region, the Russian defence ministry said.
* Reuters could not independently verify battlefield accounts.
ECONOMY/DIPLOMACY
* The biggest single pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany starts annual maintenance on Monday, with flows expected to stop for 10 days, but governments, markets and companies are worried the shut-down might be extended due to war in Ukraine.
* Siemens said Canada’s decision to allow a turbine to be sent from its repair shop in Canada to Germany was a necessary first step towards returning it to the Russian pipeline it operates, and that it was aiming to get it there as soon as possible.
* The French government is preparing to totally cut off Russian gas supplies, which it sees as the most likely scenario in its forward planning.
QUOTE
“I was thrown into the bathroom, it was all chaos, I was in shock, all covered in blood,” said a survivor after Russian rockets hit an apartment block in Donetsk region.
(Compiled by Stephen Coates; Editing by Sam Holmes)
