Cross-border shelling escalates as war reaches Russian doorstep.

Anti-Russian militias attacked at least 10 villages in Russia's Belgorod region with heavy shelling, while Moscow claimed to have blocked the beginning of a large-scale Ukrainian counteroffensive. Ukrainian officials have said that there would be no official announcement that the counteroffensive had started, and some have said that it could already be underway. The pro-Ukrainian militias, which claimed to have carried out a series of cross-border incursions in recent days, said their forces had mounted another attack on government facilities and taken Russian soldiers prisoner over the weekend.