Russia stepping up attacks

Russian forces have stepped up their shelling in Ukraine's Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, Kyiv said yesterday, after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned to expect greater hostilities ahead of a historic EU decision on Ukraine's bid for candidate status.

Nearly four months after Russia launched a bloody invasion of his country, Zelensky said there had been "few such fateful decisions for Ukraine" as the one it expects from the European Union this week.

"Obviously, we expect Russia to intensify hostile activity this week ... We are preparing. We are ready," he said.

Leaders of the EU's 27 member states will discuss at a summit on Thursday and Friday whether to add Ukraine to the list of countries vying for membership.

EU foreign ministers gathering in Luxembourg kicked off the week urging Moscow to stop blocking the export of vitally needed grain from Ukraine, a top global supplier.

"One cannot imagine that millions of tonnes of wheat remain blocked in Ukraine while in the rest of the world people are suffering hunger. This is a real war crime," the bloc's top diplomat Josep Borrell said.

In a video address to the African Union yesterday, Zelensky said Ukraine is engaged in "complex negotiations" to release its ports from Russia's blockade, warning that the global grain crisis would last as long as Russia's "colonial war".

On the ground, Russia appeared to be making some battlefield advances in the east.

In its daily update yesterday, Ukraine's presidency reported heavier Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region in the northeast.

In the Donetsk region, the intensity of the attacks "is growing along the entire frontline" it said, leaving at least one person dead and injuring seven people, including a child.

Fighting also continued in the key industrial city of Severodonetsk in the east, with Ukraine saying it had lost control of the adjacent village of Metyolkine, reports AFP.

Russia's defence ministry said it launched missile strikes during the past 24 hours, with one attack on a top-level Ukrainian military meeting near the city of Dnipro killing "more than 50 generals and officers".

It said it also targeted a building housing Western-provided weapons in Mykolaiv, destroying Ukrainian artillery and armoured vehicles.

The Ukraine war is fuelling not only a global food crisis but an energy crisis too.

Hit by punishing sanctions, Moscow has turned up the pressure on European economies by sharply reducing gas supplies, which has in turn sent energy prices soaring.

Germany on Sunday announced emergency measures including increased use of coal to ensure it meets its energy needs after a drop in the supply of Russian gas in recent days.

China's imports of oil from Russia meanwhile jumped by 55 percent year on year in May, customs data showed yesterday, as Beijing continued to refuse to condemn Moscow's war.