TOP HEADLINES

• Three people were killed and 28 wounded as Russian forces opened fire with artillery, rocket launchers and tanks around Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv. Russian military officials said the attacks had targeted deployment points of Ukrainian troops and foreign "mercenaries" in the area. 

• At least 18 people were killed in the Donetsk town of Chasiv Yar over the weekend after a Russian missile strike hit an apartment building, with Ukrainian rescuers still hoping to find survivors under the rubble on Monday. The strike is part of a wider wave of Russian bombardments in the country's east in a bid to take control of all of the Donbas. READ MORE BELOW

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Moscow of purposely targeting civilians in the Chasiv Yar missile strike, promising that "punishment is inevitable for every Russian murderer."

• Gas has stopped flowing through the biggest single pipeline carrying Russian supplies to Germany, part of planned annual maintenance that will see flows stop for 10 days. However, governments, markets and companies are worried that Moscow may extend the shutdown amid the conflict, meaning many European countries could struggle to fill vital winter stockpiles. 

• The French government is preparing for a total cut-off of Russian gas supplies, which it sees as the most likely scenario. French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said in her policy speech: "We must consider all concrete scenarios, even the most difficult ones."

• In response to Moscow's push east, Ukrainian forces have unleashed an artillery barrage into residential districts of the separatist controlled city of Donetsk, according to pro-Russian authorities in occupied Ukraine.

• Ukraine's deputy prime minister has urged civilians in the Russian-occupied southern region of Kherson to leave the area as Ukrainian armed forces prepare a counter-attack there after recapturing the village of Ivanivka.

• The governor of Russia's Kaliningrad exclave has proposed a total ban on the movement of goods between the three EU Baltic states and Russia, in reaction to what Russian officials have called a "blockade" of its territory by neighboring Lithuania. 

• Meanwhile, Lithuania has moved to expand its block on certain items traveling to through its territory to Kaliningrad, as new EU trade restrictions against Moscow take effect. Additional goods barred include concrete, wood, alcohol and alcohol-based industrial chemicals.

IN DETAIL

Death toll climbs in apartment block attack amid wave of bombardments

Ukrainian rescue workers were still trying to pull survivors from the rubble in the Donetsk town of Chasiv Yar on Monday, after the death toll from a Russian strike on an apartment building on Saturday night rose to 18 people.

The attack on the five-storey residential block just south of Sloviansk also left two dozen people trapped in the rubble, emergency service said. Rescuers said they were in voice contact with two people under the wreckage.

The rocket attack was part of Russia's push to capture all of Donetsk province, which makes up part of the industrial Donbas region in the east along with Luhansk province. Moscow took full control of the latter region earlier this month.

On Sunday, dazed survivors of the Chasiv Yar attack retrieved personal belongings and told stories of their escape. 

"I was thrown into the bathroom, it was all chaos, I was in shock, all covered in blood," said one woman.

"By the time I left the bathroom, the room was full up of rubble, three floors fell down. I never found the kittens under the rubble."

Ukraine's general staff said on Monday that Russian forces had launched a wave of bombardments in the east as they seek to take control of all of the Donbas, a region partly controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014.

On Monday, TASS news agency cited separatist officials as saying Russian and Russian-backed forces had taken control of three villages in Donetsk province.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow had carried out 34 air strikes since Saturday, while his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Moscow should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism for the apartment attack in Chasiv Yar. 

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk also warned civilians in the Russian-occupied Kherson region in the south to urgently evacuate as Kyiv's forces were preparing a counter-attack there.

"I know for sure that there should not be women and children there, and that they should not become human shields," she said on national television.