Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

(Reuters) – Russia opened fire with artillery, multiple rocket launchers and tanks around Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv and shelled cities in the east, Ukraine’s general staff said, after a rocket strike that killed 18 people in an apartment building.

FIGHTING

* Three people were killed and 22 wounded after Russian shelling hit Kharkiv, the regional governor said.

* 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 unleashed 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 Donetsk province, the Russian defence ministry said.

* Reuters could not independently verify battlefield accounts.

ECONOMY/DIPLOMACY

* The biggest single pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany began annual maintenance on Monday, with flows expected to stop for 10 days, but governments, markets and companies are worried the shutdown might be extended because of the 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 governor of Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave proposed a total ban on the movement of goods between the three EU Baltic states and Russia, in response to what Kaliningrad authorities have called a “blockade” of its territory by neighbouring Lithuania.

* Meanwhile, Lithuania expanded curbs on trade through its territory to Kaliningrad, as phase-ins on earlier-announced European Union sanctions against Moscow took effect.

* The French government is preparing for a total cut-off of Russian gas supplies, which it regards 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 Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region.

(Compiled by Stephen Coates; Editing by Sam Holmes)