Six people have been killed in Russian shelling of the town of Toretsk in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, say Ukrainian emergency services. Rescuers found five bodies in the rubble of a house, while another person died in hospital, they add. Heavy fighting continues in the east, with Russia slowly advancing.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has ordered generals to focus on destroying Ukraine’s long-range missile and artillery weapons. The defence ministry said the weapons were being used to shell residential areas of eastern Ukraine under the control of Russian-backed separatists, and to set fire to wheat fields and grain storage silos. The ministry also said that a Russian missile strike on Sunday on the Donetsk village of Kostiantynivka had killed up to 250 mercenaries fighting on the Ukrainian side, as well as destroying 19 military vehicles. The claims could not be independently verified.(BBC)…[+]