An adviser to Ukraine's interior minister on June 19 cited a heightened risk north of Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, as Russian troops seek to once again make it a "frontline city."
Vadym Denysenko told Ukrainian national television that enemy forces are seeking to get closer to Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, in order to shell it.
"Russia is trying to make Kharkiv a frontline city," Denysenko said.
Within hours of his warning, Russia's Defense Ministry claimed it had struck a tank-repair plant in Kharkiv with Iskander missiles.
The claim could not immediately be verified.
Moscow also said it had destroyed 10 howitzers and as many as 20 military vehicles far to the south, in the Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv. It said the damaged equipment had been recently supplied by Western countries. Again, there was no immediate confirmation of the claim.
Kharkiv is a largely Russian-speaking city with a population of around 1.4 million people before the large-scale invasion that began on February 24. It lies about 30 kilometers from the Russian border.
Kharkiv's defenders last month appeared to have pushed Russian forces back from an encirclement operation around the city.
Last week, reports suggested Russian forces had deployed artillery to thwart a Ukrainian counteroffensive near Kharkiv.
Amnesty International alleged last week that Russian troops had waged "a relentless campaign of indiscriminate bombardments against Kharkiv" early in the nearly four-month-old invasion. It said they had "shelled residential neighborhoods almost daily, killing hundreds of civilians and causing wholesale destruction."
Amnesty added that "many of the attacks were carried out using widely banned cluster munitions."