Ukrainian city of Sloviansk hit by ‘massive shelling’

A cleaner takes out the surviving paper for the printer from a school destroyed during a missile strike in Kharkiv (AP)

A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory in seizing an eastern Ukraine province essential to his wartime aims, a city in the path of Moscow’s offensive has come under sustained bombardment, its mayor said.

Mayor Vadim Lyakh said in a Facebook post that “massive shelling” had pummelled Sloviansk, which had a population of about 107,000 before Russian invaded Ukraine more than four months ago.