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Ukrainian forces reported heavy Russian shelling and attempts to advance on several towns in the eastern region of Donetsk that has become a key focus of the near six-month war, but said they had repelled many of the attacks.

The General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces also reported Russian shelling of more than a dozen towns on the southern front - particularly the Kherson region, mainly controlled by Russian forces, but where Ukrainian troops are steadily capturing territory.

Much attention has been focused on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine amid fears of a catastrophe over renewed shelling in recent days that Russia and Ukraine blame on each other.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for the establishment of a demilitarised zone and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned Russian soldiers who shoot at Europe's largest nuclear power station or use it as a base to shoot from that they will become a "special target" of Ukrainian forces.

The Zaporizhzhia plant dominates the south bank of a vast reservoir on the Dnipro River. Ukrainian forces controlling the towns and cities on the opposite bank have come under intense bombardment from the Russian-held side.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which seeks to inspect the plant, has warned of a nuclear disaster unless fighting stops. Nuclear experts fear fighting might damage the plant's spent fuel pools or reactors.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine had many times proposed different formats to the Russian leadership for peace talks, without progress.

"So we have to defend ourselves, we have to answer every form of terror, every instance of shelling - the fierce shelling which does not let up for a single day," he said in video remarks late on Sunday.

FIGHTING IN EAST, SOUTH

Kyiv has said for weeks it is planning a counteroffensive to recapture Zaporizhzhia and neighbouring Kherson province, the largest part of the territory Russia seized after its Feb. 24 invasion and still holds.

Ukraine's military command said early on Sunday that Russian soldiers had continued unsuccessfully to attack Ukrainian positions near Avdiivka, which, since 2014, has become one of the outposts of Ukrainian forces near Donetsk.

Ukrainian military expert Oleg Zhdanov said the situation was particularly difficult in Avdiivka and nearby towns, such as Pisky.

"We have insufficient artillery power in place and our forces are asking for more support to defend Pisky," he said in a video posted online. "But the town is basically under Ukrainian control."

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.

Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" its smaller neighbour. The war has pushed Moscow-Washington relations to a low point, with Russia warning it may sever ties.

While Russia has been largely isolated on the global diplomatic stage, North Korean state media on Monday said Russian President Vladimir Putin told leader Kim Jong Un the two countries would expand "comprehensive and constructive" ties. 

In July, North Korea recognised as independent states the Russian-backed breakaway "people's republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk, and officials raised the prospect of its workers being sent there to help in construction and other labour.

Ukraine immediately severed ties with Pyongyang over the move.

GRAIN SHIPS

Amid the fighting, more ships carrying Ukrainian grain left or prepared to do so as part of a late July deal to ease a global food crisis.

An Ethiopia-bound cargo, the first since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was getting ready to leave in the next few days, while sources said the first grain ship to leave Ukraine under a U.N. deal was nearing Syria.

"The world needs the food of Ukraine," Marianne Ward, the deputy country director of the World Food Programme, told reporters. "This is the beginning of what we hope are normal operations for the hungry people of the world."

The relief agency bought more than 800,000 tonnes of grain in Ukraine last year. (Reuters)

A senior official in Japan's ruling party visited Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine for war dead on Monday, the 77th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two, a move likely to anger South Korea and China.

The site, honouring 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal, as well as war dead, was visited early on Monday by Koichi Hagiuda, the head of the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) policy research council and a key ally of slain former prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Seen by Beijing and Seoul as a symbol of Japan's past military aggression, the central Tokyo shrine was also visited by Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura on Saturday.

The commemoration leaves Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, on the dovish side of the conservative LDP facing a tricky balancing act - avoiding irking international neighbours and partners, while still keeping the more right-wing members of the party happy, particularly after the killing of party kingpin Abe last month. 

Japan's ties with China are particularly strained this year after it conducted unprecedented military exercises around Taiwan following the visit there by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this month. During the drills several missiles fell in waters inside Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone.

A group of lawmakers that normally visit en masse on Aug 15 said last week they would not do so due to a recent surge in coronavirus cases.

Kishida avoided paying his respects in person on the anniversary of the war's end while he was a cabinet minister and LDP official, but has sent offerings to the two Yasukuni festivals that have taken place since he took office last October. He, as well as Emperor Naruhito, will attend a separate, secular ceremony later in the day.

Abe was the last prime minister in recent memory to visit Yasukuni while in office, in 2013 - a visit that outraged both China and South Korea and even drew a rebuke from its close ally the United States.

The United States and Japan have become staunch security allies in the decades since the war's end, but its legacy still haunts East Asia.

Koreans, who mark the date as National Liberation Day, resent Japan's 1910-1945 colonisation of the peninsula, while China has bitter memories of imperial troops' invasion and occupation of parts of the country from 1931-1945. (Reuters)