WEEKEND SHELLING BY Russian forces killed at least seven civilians, Ukrainian officials reported on today as Pope Francis used his traditional Easter message to highlight the war in Ukraine and other conflicts around the world.

While Russia continued to concentrate on seizing all of Ukraine’s industrial east, two other provinces – Kharkiv in the north east and Zaporizhzhia in the south east – came under missile, rocket and artillery fire, the Ukrainian military reported.

Kharkiv governor Oleh Syniehubov said two men died today in shelling in Kupiansk, a city that Russia held before Ukrainian forces regained control of almost all of the province.

The city remained under attack later this afternoon as Russian forces targeted residential areas with multiple rocket launchers, Syniehubov said.

Elsewhere in the province, a 30-year-old man was admitted to hospital in a serious condition after Russian shelling of the city of Chuhuiv, he said on Telegram.

Shelling also killed two people overnight, one of them a child born in 2012, in the city of Zaporizhzhia, the capital of that province, according to city council secretary Anatoliy Kurtev.

The Zaporizhzhia region’s governor, Yurii Malashko, said 18 communities in all were shelled.

Three people were killed and five were wounded on Saturday, Malashko said.

Zaporizhzhia is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and one of four Ukrainian provinces that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed in September.

Since then, Russia’s military has sought to oust Ukraine’s troops from those areas, especially Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, which make up the industrial region known as the Donbas.

Bakhmut, a city in Donetsk, has seen the 13-month war’s longest battle.

A Ukrainian MSLR BM-21 ‘Grad’ fires towards Russian positions, at the front line in the Donetsk region PA PA

Western analysts have said Russian forces recently made it into the centre of the city.

Seizing Bakhmut after more than eight months would give the Kremlin a badly wanted victory and a path to push on towards bigger Ukrainian-held cities.

The Russian army is moving elite units to Bakhmut, Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces, said earlier today.

Col Cherevaty said the Wagner Group, a private Russian military company whose fighters have spearheaded the offensive on Bakhmut, was incurring heavy losses, making it necessary to move in regular army units from the regular army, including paratroopers and motorised riflemen.

The vast majority of Ukrainians with a religious affiliation identify as Orthodox Christian, a faith that observes Easter on April 16 this year.

Some Catholics celebrated Easter today, while Orthodox churches marked Palm Sunday this weekend.

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While delivering his Easter address from the central balcony of the Vatican’s St Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis implored God to “help the beloved Ukrainian people on their journey towards peace, and shed the light of Easter upon the people of Russia”.

Pope Francis waves from the central lodge of St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican at the end of the Easter Sunday Mass PA PA

“Comfort the wounded and all those who have lost loved ones because of the war, and grant that prisoners may return safe and sound to their families,” Francis said.

Easter affirms the Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead days after his crucifixion.

Between Saturday and Sunday mornings, Russian forces launched 40 air strikes, four missile strikes and 58 attacks from multiple-rocket launchers on various parts of Ukraine, the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces reported.

According to the General Staff, Russia focused attacks on the Donetsk province communities of Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka.

Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said this morning that two civilians were wounded on Saturday.

Officials in Kherson province, where Ukrainian forces forced a partial Russian retreat in November, said the southern region also received numerous attacks.

They did not report any casualties.