Fierce battles in bakhmut as russian missiles hit kharkiv

BAKHMUT, UKRAINE

ag e n c e s hE AV y fighting was underway

Sunday in the northern parts of the frontline hotspot Bakhmut, while Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv wounded five people

Despite the flow of Western weapons to Ukraine, Russia has in recent days claimed gains around war-ravaged Bakhmut in the eastern region of Donetsk

However, the head of Russia’s mercenary group Wagner said Sunday that the Ukrainian army was not retreating and that fighting raged on in northern parts of Bakhmut “In the northern quarters of Artemovsk, fierce battles are going on for every street, every house, every stairwell, yevgeny Prigozhin said in a statement, referring to Bakhmut by its old name

The Ukrainian armed forces are fighting to the last,” he said Russian forces have been trying to seize control of Bakhmut in the eastern region of Donetsk for months in what has become the longest and bloodiest battle since Russia invaded Ukraine last February –

‘I came to pray for peace’ –

The fight for Bakhmut has turned the town with a pre-war population of roughly 75,000 into a ghost town dotted with hedgehog anti-tank defences and burnt-out cars The town has no water, gas or electricity

About 20 people, including two soldiers, attended a Sunday mass in the basement of the golden-domed All Saints church in the deserted town

Three women sang hymns, punctuated by sounds of mortar shells in the background The room was lit by two dozen candles and a portable light used by the two priests to read from the sacred book

“Today I prayed that everything will be better for me after I die said 20-year-old Serafim Chernyshov standing outside the church, with loud sounds of a steady exchange of small arms fire and the pounding

At Least 23 Dead As Dozens Of Wildfires Torch Forests In Chile

SANTIAGO

R e u t e R s

Dozens of wildfires blazing through Chile caused the government to extend an emergency order to another region on Saturday, as a scorching summer heat wave complicates efforts to control fires that have claimed at least 23 lives so far

More than 1,100 people have sought refuge in shelters while at least 979 people have been reported injured by the raging fires, according to an official briefing later on Saturday

The latest emergency order covers the southern region of Araucania, next to the previously declared Biobio and Nuble regions, located near the middle of the South American country s long Pacific coastline “Weather conditions have made it very difficult to put out (the fires) that are spreading and the emergency is getting worse,” Interior Minister Carolina Toha told reporters at a news conference in the capital Santiago

We need to reverse that curve she added noting that on Friday 76 more fires had ignited

Another 16 fires sparked to life on Saturday, according to officials as local temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere summer exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 Celsius)

The sparsely populated three regions covered by the emergency orders are home to many farms, including where grapes apples and berries are grown for export plus extensive tracts of forest land

Officials told reporters on Saturday that the governments of Spain the United States Argentina Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela have offered help, including planes and firefighters