Latest Russia news and the war in Ukraine

Russia suspended deliveries of gas to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline for annual summer maintenance works.

The 10-day maintenance works on Europe’s single biggest piece of gas import infrastructure are scheduled to run from Monday through to July 21. It has stoked fears that Russia could leverage the planned maintenance to delay or only partially return gas supplies.

It comes at a time when European governments are scrambling to fill underground storage with gas supplies to provide households with enough fuel to keep the lights on and homes warm during winter.

“We cannot rule out the possibility that gas transport will not be resumed afterwards for political reasons,” Klaus Mueller, the head of Germany’s energy regulator, told CNBC last week.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has previously dismissed claims that Russia was using oil and gas to exert political pressure over Europe, according to Reuters.

— Sam Meredith

Russian troops are shelling the city of Kharkiv with multiple launch rocket systems, with local residents being urged not to go outdoors amid “extremely dangerous” conditions.

Kharkiv Regional Military Administration’s Head Oleh Synyehubov issued a warning on Telegram in which he said “Russian occupiers have opened fire, reportedly with multiple launch rocket systems.”

“Attention! Residents of Kharkiv and Kharkiv Region, please do not stay outdoors unless absolutely necessary. It is extremely dangerous. All services are responding quickly and working at the scene,” Synyehubov said.

Ukraine’s armed forces have already reported on Monday morning that Russian missile strikes were targeting Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, with a school among the buildings being destroyed.

— Holly Ellyatt

The death toll from a Russian rocket attack that hit a five-storey apartment block in the town of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine has risen to 18 on Monday.

Search and rescue teams are still racing to reach survivors in the rubble, the emergency services said. Images published on Sunday showed teams using their hands to try to unpick the rubble and reach people trapped in the ruins of the building.

“Rescuers have recovered a body of another victim from under the rubble of a 5-storey apartment block destroyed in the missile strike on the city of Chasiv Yar,” the report on Facebook stated Monday.

“A total of 18 civilians were found dead. Six civilians were rescued from under the rubble. A total of 138 tonnes of destroyed structures were dismantled. Rescue works are underway.”

A further update stated that two more men had been rescued from the rubble in the ongoing rescue operation.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russian forces have launched a wave of attacks on various cities in the east of the country and look like they’re preparing to intensify their assaults, Ukraine’s general staff said on Monday.

Russian forces have particularly intensified their assaults around Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv with artillery, rocket launchers and tanks deployed in the city and surrounding areas, Oleksandr Shtupun, the spokesman for the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, said on Facebook on Monday.

Shtupun said that in the Donetsk direction, “there are signs of enemy units preparing to intensify combat operations in the Kramatorsk and Bakhmut directions” and that in the area of Sloviansk — a city of the new frontline in Donetsk — various settlements to the north and northwest had been shelled with barrel and jet artillery.

The nearby city of Kramatorsk to the south had not seen active operations, Shtupun said, but towns between Sloviansk and Severodonetsk — the border area between Russian-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk — have been shelled with barrel artillery, Shtupun said.

—Holly Ellyatt

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, speaking Sunday to CNBC’s Charlotte Reed at the Rencontres Economiques event in Aix-en-Provence, discusses the possibility of Russia shutting off the gas taps to Europe.

“I think that this is one of the key…