(Reuters) -The Biden administration on Friday unveiled an environmental analysis for ConocoPhillips’ planned $6 billion Willow oil and gas project in Alaska and outlined several options for the development, including not building it at all.

The release of the document has been highly anticipated by the oil and gas industry and environmental groups since last year, when a federal judge in Alaska reversed the Trump administration’s approval of the massive project and said federal agencies must reconsider their environmental analysis.

It comes as President Joe Biden has sought to balance his goals of fighting climate change with calls to increase fuel supplies in the face of soaring prices.

In the draft review, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) analyzed five potential options for the project, including ConocoPhillips’ proposal to build up to five drill sites, dozens of miles of roads, seven bridges and pipelines. It also considered a scaled down version with fewer drill sites and other infrastructure that would have less of an impact on wildlife such as caribou.

BLM said it will also consider not approving the project at all. The bureau will accept public comment on the alternatives for 45 days, which it will consider in its final decision.

In a statement, ConocoPhillips spokesperson Dennis Nuss said Willow was “a strong example of environmentally and socially responsible development that offers extensive public benefits.”

The analysis is being released nearly a year after Alaska District Court Judge Sharon Gleason vacated the BLM’s approval of Willow, saying the bureau had failed to consider greenhouse gas emissions from foreign oil consumption in its review.

Willow was approved by the administration of former President Donald Trump as part of his push to ratchet up fossil fuel development on federal lands. Alaskan officials hope the project will help offset declining oil production in the state.

Willow would be located inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 23 million-acre area on the state’s North Slope that is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States.

The Willow project area holds an estimated 600 million barrels of oil, or more than the amount currently held in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the country’s emergency supply stored in caverns along the Gulf Coast.

Environmental groups reiterated their opposition to the project on Friday.

Alaska Wilderness League Conservation Director Kristen Miller, in a statement, called it “an unparalleled climate and biodiversity threat that puts President Biden’s climate legacy at risk.”

(Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, William Mallard & Shri Navaratnam)

By Divya Rajagopal and Ismail Shakil

TORONTO/OTTAWA -Rogers Telecommunications said its network was beginning to recover late on Friday after a 19-hour service outage at one of Canada’s biggest telecom operators shut banking, transport and government access for millions, drawing outrage from customers and adding to criticism over its industry dominance.

Nearly every facet of life has been disrupted, with the outage affecting internet access, cell phone and landline phone connections. Some callers could not reach emergency services via 911 calls, police across Canada said.

Canadians crowded into cafes and public libraries that still had internet access and hovered outside hotels to catch a signal. Canada’s border services agency said the outage affected its mobile app for incoming travelers. Retailers’ cashless pay systems went down; banks reported issues with ATM services.

Rogers said in a statement https://twitter.com/RogersHelps/status/1545586755189067777/photo/1 on Twitter that “our wireless services are starting to recover” and workers are trying to get people back online as quickly as possible.

In a separate statement https://about.rogers.com/news-ideas/a-message-from-tony-staffieri-president-and-ceo-at-rogers on its website, Rogers President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Staffieri apologized for the outage, saying: “Today we let you down. We can and will do better.”

He added that the company doesn’t have a timeline on when the networks will be fully restored, “but we will continue to share information with our customers as we restore full services.”

He said a credit would be applied to affected customers.

A spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said Friday evening that the outage was not the result of a cyber attack.

Rogers’ shares closed down 73 cents at C$61.54 ($47.53) on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The disruption also made transport and flight bookings more difficult at the height of the summer travel season.

So far, Transport Canada has not received reports of direct safety or security impacts to any flights, marine or rail services as part of this outage, according to spokesperson Sau Liu.

The interruption was Rogers’ second in 15 months. It began around 4:30 a.m. ET (0830 GMT) and knocked out a quarter of Canada’s observable internet connectivity, said the NetBlocks monitoring group.

With about 10 million wireless subscribers and 2.25 million retail internet subscribers, Rogers is the top provider in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and home to its biggest city, Toronto. Rogers, BCE Inc and Telus Corp control 90% of the market share in Canada.

Canadian Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne in a tweet called the situation “unacceptable” and said he was in communication with telecom CEOs, including those from Rogers, Bell and Telus, to find a solution.

Canadian financial institutions and banks, including Toronto-Dominion Bank and Bank Of Montreal, said the outage disrupted services. Royal Bank of Canada said its ATMs and online banking services were affected.

A spokesperson for Vancouver International airport, among Canada’s busiest, said travelers could not pay for parking, use terminal ATMs or purchase items at airport retailers.

Air Canada, the country’s largest airline, said its call center had been affected. Airlines in Canada, like those in Europe and the United States, have been experiencing high call volume amid flight cancellations and delays due to pandemic staffing shortages.

Pop star the Weeknd on Friday evening announced that his tour stop at the Rogers Centre stadium had been postponed due to service outages affecting venue operations.

“I’m crushed & heartbroken. Been at the venue all day but it’s out of our hands because of the Rogers outage,” the singer wrote in a tweet.

COMPETITION

Critics said the outage demonstrated a need for more competition in telecom.

Earlier this year, Canada’s competition bureau blocked Rogers’ attempt to take over rival Shaw Communications in a C$20 billion deal, saying it would hamper competition in a country where telecom rates are some of the world’s highest. The merger still awaits a final verdict.

“Today’s outage illustrates the need for more independent competition that will drive more network investment so outages are far less likely,” said Anthony Lacavera, managing director of Globealive, an investment firm that had bid for a wireless provider involved in the Rogers/Shaw deal.

On Friday, some government agencies canceled services after losing internet access, including Canada’s passport offices and the telecoms regulator. The Canada Revenue Agency, the country’s tax collection body, lost telephone service.

‘CASH WILL BE KING’

Shops and restaurants in Toronto put “Cash Only” signs on their doors. Residents crowded into and around a nearby Starbucks coffee shop offering free Wi-Fi on an unaffected network.

“There’s tons of people here with their laptops just working away ferociously, the same as they would at home, because they’ve got no service at home,” said Starbucks customer Ken Rosenstein.

In downtown Ottawa, Canada’s capital, cafes including Tim Hortons were not accepting debit and credit cards and were turning away customers who did not have cash.

Michelle Wasylyshen, spokeswoman for the Retail Council of Canada, said outages would vary from one retailer to the next: “Cash will most certainly be king at many stores today.”

While the disruptions were widespread, several companies and transport points said their services were unaffected. The Port of Montreal reported no disruptions. The Calgary Airport Authority said it had “no major operational impacts.”

($1 = 1.2948 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik, Eva Matthews, Shubham Kalia and Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; Katharine Jackson in Washington; Divya Rajagopal and Chris Helgren in Toronto; Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Writing by Rami Ayyub, Aurora Ellis and Christian Schmollinger; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli, Jonathan Oatis, David Gregorio and Leslie Adler & Shri Navaratnam)

KHIMKI, Russia – U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to a drugs charge in a Russian court on Thursday but denied she had intentionally broken the law.

Griner was speaking at the second hearing of her trial on a narcotics charge that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, days after she urged U.S. President Joe Biden to secure her release.

“I’d like to plead guilty, your honour. But there was no intent. I didn’t want to break the law,” Griner said, speaking quietly in English which was then translated into Russian for the court.

“I’d like to give my testimony later. I need time to prepare,” she added.

The next court hearing was scheduled for July 14.

Griner’s lawyers told reporters they were hoping for the most lenient sentencing possible, taking into account “the nature of her case, the insignificant amount of the substance and BG’s personality and history of positive contributions to global and Russian sport.”

“We, as her defense, explained to her the possible consequences. Brittney stressed that she committed the crime out of carelessness, getting ready to board a plane to Russia in a hurry, not intending to break Russian law,” said Griner’s attorney, Maria Blagovolina, a partner at Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners law firm.

“We certainly hope this circumstance, in combination with the defence evidence, will be taken into account when passing the sentence, and it will be mild.”

Griner’s legal team said it expected the trial to conclude around the beginning of August: “Brittney sets an example of being brave.”

Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, was detained in February at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport with vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in Russia, and has been kept in custody since.

The WNBA’s players association released a statement reiterating its support for the eight-time All-Star.

Griner will be recognised as an honorary starter at this weekend’s WNBA All-Star Game.

“The WNBA continues to work diligently with the U.S. State Department, the White House, and other allies in and outside government to get Brittney home safely and as soon as possible,” said WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.

The White House said Griner’s guilty plea would have no impact on U.S. negotiations to bring her home.

In a handwritten note, Griner appealed to Biden directly earlier this week to step up U.S. efforts to bring her home.

“I realize you are dealing with so much, but please don’t forget about me and the other American detainees…” Griner wrote. “Please do all you can to bring us home.”

Biden spoke to Griner’s wife on Wednesday, telling her he was working to have the basketball star released “as soon as possible”, the White House said.

Officials from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow attended Griner’s trial and delivered a letter to her from Biden, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

“We will not relent until Brittney, Paul Whelan and all other wrongfully detained Americans are reunited with their loved ones,” he tweeted, referring to former U.S. Marine Whelan who has been imprisoned in Russia since 2018 on espionage charges.

‘BARGAINING CHIP’

U.S. officials and many athletes have called for the release of Griner – or “BG” as she is known to basketball fans – who they say has been wrongfully detained.

Her case has prompted concerns that Moscow could use it as leverage to negotiate the release of a high-profile Russian citizen in U.S. custody.

Griner, a centre for the Phoenix Mercury in the Women’s National Basketball Association, had played for UMMC Ekaterinburg in the Russian Women’s Basketball Premier League to boost her income during the WNBA off-season, like several other U.S. players.

Russian authorities say there is no basis to consider Griner’s detention illegal and that the case against her is not political despite Moscow’s fraught relations with the United States over the Russian military intervention in Ukraine.

Moscow’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday that it was difficult to exchange prisoners with the United States and suggested Washington stop talking about the fate of Griner.

Asked about Ryabkov’s remarks, the State Department said it would not comment on speculation.

“Using the practice of wrongful detention as a bargaining chip represents a threat to the safety of everyone traveling, working and living abroad. The United States opposes this practice everywhere,” a State Department spokesperson said.

The Russian foreign ministry has said Griner could appeal her sentence or apply for clemency once a verdict has been delivered.

(Reporting by Reuters; Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Amy Tennery; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Frances Kerry and Howard Goller)

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -The publisher of a youth shooting magazine and several gun-rights groups filed a lawsuit on Friday challenging a recently enacted California law banning the marketing of guns to minors by manufacturers and others in the firearms industry.

In a lawsuit https://tmsnrt.rs/3nR28M2 filed in federal court in Los Angeles, the publisher Junior Shooters and groups including the Second Amendment Foundation argued that the law violated their free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office in a statement said it would “take any and all action under the law to defend California’s commonsense gun laws.”

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed the measure, AB 2571, into law last week, citing the need for new laws “as the Supreme Court rolls back important gun safety protections.”

The legislation cleared the state’s legislature days after the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court on June 23 ruled the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment protects a person’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.

Calls for new gun control laws have grown following a series of mass shootings like the one at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed in May and the killing of seven people at a parade in a Chicago suburb on July 4.

Newsom’s office cited advertising by a gun manufacturer named Wee 1 Tactical of an AR-15 meant for kids as an example of why the law was needed.

In Friday’s lawsuit, Junior Sports Magazines Inc, the magazine publisher, and groups also including the California Rifle & Pistol Association said the legislation went too far in abridging their speech rights.

They said it wrongly prohibits the promotion of lawful firearm-related events and programs and impermissibly restricted pro-gun organizations from promoting membership in their groups in ways deemed “attractive to minors.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Jonathan Oatis)

By Satoshi Sugiyama and Chang-Ran Kim

NARA, Japan -Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the longest-serving leader of modern Japan, was gunned down on Friday while campaigning for a parliamentary election, shocking a country where guns are tightly controlled and political violence almost unthinkable.

Abe, 67, was pronounced dead around five and a half hours after the shooting in the city of Nara. Police arrested a 41-year-old man and said the weapon was a homemade gun.

“I am simply speechless over the news of Abe’s death,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Abe’s protege, told reporters.

Earlier, as Abe still lay in hospital where doctors tried to revive him, Kishida struggled to keep his emotions in check.

“This attack is an act of brutality that happened during the elections – the very foundation of our democracy – and is absolutely unforgivable,” he said.

Abe had been making a campaign speech outside a train station when two shots rang out. Security officials were then seen tackling a man in a grey T-shirt and beige trousers.

“There was a loud bang and then smoke,” businessman Makoto Ichikawa, who was at the scene, told Reuters. “The first shot, no one knew what was going on, but after the second shot, what looked like special police tackled him.”

Kyodo news service published a photograph of Abe lying face-up on the street by a guardrail, blood on his white shirt. People were crowded around him, one administering heart massage.

Abe was taken to hospital in cardiopulmonary arrest and showing no vital signs. He was declared dead at 5:03 p.m. (0803 GMT), having bled to death from deep wounds to the heart and the right side of his neck.

He had received more than 100 units of blood in transfusions over four hours, Hidetada Fukushima, the professor in charge of emergency medicine at Nara Medical University Hospital, told a televised news conference.

Police said the gunman had admitted to shooting Abe with a handmade firearm he had fashioned out of metal and wood.

Media reported his name as Tetsuya Yamagami. Police said he was a Nara resident who worked at Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Forces for three years but now appeared to be unemployed. They were investigating whether he had acted alone.

Investigators found “several” other handmade guns at his one-room flat in Nara city, police added.

The suspect said he bore a grudge against a “specific organisation” and believed Abe was part of it, and that his grudge was not about politics, the police said, adding it was not clear if the unnamed organisation actually existed.

FLOWERS LAID

Members of the public laid flowers near the spot where Abe fell. TV Asahi reported that Abe’s body would be transferred to his Tokyo home on Saturday.

It was the first killing of a sitting or former Japanese leader since a 1936 coup attempt, when several figures including two ex-premiers were assassinated.

Post-war Japan prides itself on its orderly and open democracy. Senior Japanese politicians are accompanied by armed security agents but often get close to the public, especially during political campaigns when they make roadside speeches and shake hands with passersby.

In 2007, the mayor of Nagasaki was shot and killed by a yakuza gangster. The head of the Japan Socialist Party was assassinated during a speech in 1960 by a right-wing youth with a samurai short sword. A few other prominent politicians have been attacked but not injured.

Two years since stepping down, Abe had remained a dominant presence over the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), controlling one of its major factions.

Kishida, who won the premiership with Abe’s backing, said the LDP would continue election campaigning on Saturday to demonstrate its resolve to “never give in to violence”, and to defend a “free and fair election at all cost”.

‘STUNNED, OUTRAGED’

“I am stunned, outraged, and deeply saddened by the news that my friend Abe Shinzo, former Prime Minister of Japan, was shot and killed while campaigning,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement.

“This is a tragedy for Japan and for all who knew him… He was a champion of the alliance between our nations and the friendship between our people.”

The United States is Japan’s most important ally.

Similar messages of sympathy and shock poured in from around the world following news of Abe’s death, including from neighbouring Taiwan, China and Russia, as well as from across Asia, Europe and the Americas.

The yen rose and Japan’s Nikkei index fell on news of the shooting, partially driven by a knee-jerk flight to safety.

Abe is best known for his “Abenomics” policy of aggressive monetary easing and fiscal spending.

He also bolstered defence spending after years of declines and expanded the military’s ability to project power abroad.

In a historic shift in 2014, his government reinterpreted the postwar, pacifist constitution to allow troops to fight overseas for the first time since World War Two.

The following year, legislation ended a ban on exercising the right of collective self-defence, or defending a friendly country under attack.

Abe, however, never achieved his goal of revising the U.S.-drafted constitution by writing the Self-Defense Forces, as Japan’s military is known, into the pacifist Article 9.

Abe hailed from a wealthy political family that included a foreign minister father and a grandfather who served as premier.

He first took office in 2006 as Japan’s youngest prime minister since World War Two. After a year plagued by political scandals and an election drubbing, Abe quit citing ill health.

He became prime minister again in 2012, winning three election landslides in a row before stepping down in 2020, again citing his health.

(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama in Nara, Chang-Ran Kim in Tokyo; Additional reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by Robert Birsel and Hugh Lawson; Editing by William Mallard and Peter Graff)

By Cassandra Garrison

MEXICO CITY – For 14 months, a team of more than 80 engineers, surveyors, restorers, architects and archaeologists have been toiling to protect part of one of Mexico’s most important and ancient sites, the Templo Mayor complex – which the Aztecs believed to be the center of the universe.

A roof that covered the House of Eagles, part of this 500-year-old site, collapsed in a storm last April under the weight of hail and rain. It caused only minor damage, but left the team scrambling to protect the site in the center of downtown Mexico City’s historic district.

A newly designed roof over the site, adjacent to the ruins of the Templo Mayor – the Aztecs’ holiest shrine – should be ready by mid-September, restorers told Reuters during a visit.

The task has been daunting; needing to redesign a roof built in the 1980s that would be wide enough and strong enough to withstand extreme weather and protect an area featuring elaborately carved relief sculptures and painted murals depicting warriors in procession and blood-letting rituals.

They would have to avoid constructing new support beams that damage the fragile pre-Hispanic floor – and do it all in the middle of a pandemic.

They got started the morning after the storm.

“And from then on, we didn’t stop,” said Mariana Diaz de Leon Lastras, head of the restoration department at the Templo Mayor museum. “It is a very big responsibility.”

Mexico’s anthropology and history institute INAH oversaw the project, including the complicated process of removing the collapsed roof without damaging the ruins.

“Everything was done from the street thanks to a crane that was authorized by Mexico City to enter,” said Templo Mayor museum director Patricia Ledesma Bouchan.

In order to safely work above the site, the team constructed a wooden floor, with room for ventilation to prevent fungus growth, above the original floor, which the Aztecs built using stucco, a combination of lime and a slimy substance from nopal cactus.

“It’s like an organic waterproofing agent,” Ledesma said.

Even as the team worked on a new roof, with no more than 20 people present at one time to comply with COVID-19 regulations, they had to constantly check and maintain the original structure below. For this, they built doors and windows in the wooden floor, giving them eyes on the more than 500-year-old site.

The impact of climate change – a longer rainy season and sharper extremes in hot and cold – are factors that also had to be considered for the new roof, with essential protection for the colorful murals that are vulnerable to the sun.

“These sudden changes in temperature, these very, very large fluctuations, are what can damage the features,” said Diaz de Leon Lastras.

In addition to the new roof above the House of Eagles, the team aims to reinforce and improve three other coverings at the site this year.

(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

By Pavel Polityuk

KYIV – Ukraine urged its allies on Friday to send more weapons as its forces dug in to slow Russia’s military advance through the eastern Donbas region, while its chief negotiator said a turning part was approaching in the conflict.

Signalling that the Kremlin was in no mood for compromise, President Vladimir Putin said continued use of sanctions against Russia for the invasion it launched in February risked causing “catastrophic” energy price rises.

His top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, clashed with his Western counterparts at a G20 meeting, where they urged Russia to allow Kyiv to ship blockaded Ukrainian grain out to an increasingly hungry world.

Meanwhile, Moscow’s envoy to London offered little prospect of a pull-back from parts of Ukraine under Russian control.

Ambassador Andrei Kelin told Reuters that Russian troops would capture the rest of Donbas in eastern Ukraine and were unlikely to withdraw from land across the southern coast.

Ukraine would eventually have to strike a peace deal or “continue slipping down this hill” to ruin, he said.

On the Donbas frontlines, Ukrainian officials reported Russian shelling of towns and villages ahead of an anticipated push for more territory.

A Ukrainian infantry unit on the road to the town of Siversk, whose members spoke to Reuters, had set up positions on the edge of a deep earth bunker covered with logs and sandbags and defended by machine guns.

In the Russian-occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in southern Ukraine, meanwhile, residents were urged to evacuate by the Ukrainian deputy prime minister in order to allow Ukrainian forces to launch a counter-offensive.

“Please leave – our army will begin retaking these areas. Our determination is rock solid. And it will be very difficult later to open humanitarian corridors when children are involved,” said Iryna Vereshchuk, quoted in Ukrainian media.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy went on a visit to areas at and near the front, and said he spent the day visiting a hospital in Dnipro treating wounded soldiers and touring areas in the forward lines of defence in Dnipropetrovsk and Kriviy Rih regions.

Mykhailo Podolyak, the Ukrainian chief negotiator in stalled talks with Russia, said a turning point was starting to take shape as Russian forces were forced to take an operational pause due to losses and to resupply.

“It is clear that they have to redeploy things, bring forward new troops and weaponry, and this is very good. A certain turning point is beginning to take shape because we are proving we are going to attack storage facilities and command centres,” Podolyak told Ukraine’s 24 Channel television.

‘SCORCHED EARTH TACTICS’

On Thursday, Putin had indicated that current prospects of finding a solution to the conflict were dim, saying Russia’s campaign in Ukraine had barely started.

Ambassador Kelin’s remarks gave an insight into Russia’s potential endgame – a forced partition that would leave its former Soviet neighbour shorn of more than a fifth of its post-Soviet territory.

An escalation of the war was possible, Kelin said.

Ukrainian officials, echoing comments by the deputy commander of the infantry unit outside Siversk, said they needed more high-grade Western weapons to shore up the their defences.

U.S. President Joe Biden signed a new weapons package worth up to $400 million for Ukraine on Friday, including four additional high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) and more ammunition.

Zelenskiy on Twitter thanked Biden for the HIMARS and shells, which he said were priority needs.

“It is what helps us press on the enemy,” he said.

The United States started providing the key precision rocket weapon system to Ukraine last month after receiving assurances from Kyiv that it would not use them to hit targets inside Russian territory. Kyiv has attributed battlefield successes to the arrival of the HIMARS.

“When they came in, the Russian war machine could instantly feel its effect,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, told Reuters. But more Western military aid was vital, he added.

‘NOT YOUR COUNTRY’

At the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, some of the staunchest critics of the invasion confronted Lavrov, who walked out of a meeting and denounced the West for “frenzied criticism.”

High on the list of foreign ministers’ concerns was getting grain shipments from Ukraine out through ports blocked by Russia’s presence in the Black Sea and naval mines. Ukraine is a leading exporter and aid agencies have warned that many developing countries face devastating food shortages if supplies fail to reach them.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Moscow to let Ukrainian grain out, a Western official said.

“He addressed Russia directly, saying: ‘To our Russian colleagues: Ukraine is not your country. Its grain is not your grain. Why are you blocking the ports? You should let the grain out,'” the official said.

Since Russia started in February what it calls a special operation to demilitarize Ukraine, cities have been bombed to rubble, thousands have been killed, and millions displaced.

Ukraine and its Western allies say Russia is engaged in an unprovoked land grab.

Russian forces have seized a big chunk of territory across Ukraine’s southern flank and are waging a war of attrition in the Donbas, the eastern industrial heartland made up of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.

Luhansk’s governor said Russian forces were indiscriminately shelling populated areas on Friday.

“They are not stopped even by the fact that civilians remain there, dying in houses and yards,” Serhiy Gaidai said.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield accounts.

In the city of Sievierodonetsk, which was fully occupied by Russian forces last month, most of the infrastructure has been destroyed and major repairs are needed, said Oleskandr Stryuk, the mayor, warning that sanitation in the meantime will be “catastrophic.”

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Angus MacSwan, John Stonestreet and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Tomasz Janowski and Rosalba O’Brien)