Orikhiv, Lyman and Lutsk: three regional scenes from 10 July 2023

What did life in Ukraine's regions look like on 10 July 2023? In the south-east it meant shelling of residential areas; in the north-west it meant a ceremony of remembrance attended by two presidents.

On 10 July 2023, Russian forces struck a residential area in Orikhiv, in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. According to Governor Yuriy Malashko, seven civilians were killed and 11 others injured.

Lyman, two days earlier

The strike on Orikhiv followed a similar pattern in Donetsk Oblast. On 8 July 2023, Russian forces shelled Lyman, killing eight people and injuring 13 others, according to governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. The shelling fell within the Battle of Donbas, the offensive for control of the Donbas region that began on 18 April 2022 and that military analysts later came to regard as the second strategic phase of the invasion, after Russia's initial three-pronged attack.

Remembrance in Lutsk

The previous day, 9 July 2023, brought a different kind of regional event. The President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, commemorated the victims of the 1943 massacres in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia at a ceremony in the Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral in Lutsk.

Taken together, the reports from 8 to 10 July 2023 show regions living through very different circumstances: communities in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts counting civilian casualties from attacks on residential areas, and Lutsk hosting a joint act of remembrance between Ukraine and Poland.