Ukrainian authorities said their forces aimed at a Russian ammunition depot in southern Ukraine overnight, causing a massive explosion that killed 52 people.
Key points:
- Russian news sources claim that the explosion was due to an explosion of fertilizers
- Attacks by Russian forces in Ukraine killed 16 more civilians on Tuesday
- British intelligence says Russia has now seized the Ukrainian city of Hryhorivka
The southern command of the Ukrainian army said a rocket attack aimed at the Russian-controlled New Kakhovka depot, about 55 km east of the Black Sea port city of Kherson, which is also occupied by Russian forces.
The accuracy of the attack suggested that Ukrainian forces used U.S.-supplied multi-launch high-mobility artillery rocket systems, or HIMARS, to strike the area.
Ukraine has indicated in recent days that it could launch a counteroffensive to reclaim territories in the south of the country, as Russia devotes resources to capturing the entire eastern Donbas region.
The Russian news agency Tass offered a different account of the explosion in New Kakhovka, saying that a mineral fertilizer storage facility exploded and that a market, a hospital and houses were damaged during the strike. Some of the fertilizer ingredients can be used for ammunition.
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Ukraine now has eight of the HIMAR systems, a high-precision truck-mounted missile launcher, and Washington has promised to send four more.
The Russian offensive continues in southeastern Ukraine
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian bombings over the past 24 hours have killed at least 16 civilians and injured 48 more, the Ukrainian presidential office said in its update Tuesday morning.
Cities and towns in five southeastern regions were left under Russian fire, the office said.
Nine civilians were killed and two more were injured in the Donetsk province, which makes up half of the Donbas.
The Russian rocket attacks targeted the cities of Sloviansk and Toretsk, where a nursery was attacked, the presidential office said.
The death toll from a Russian rocket attack that hit a Donetsk apartment building on Saturday rose to 38, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday afternoon.
The head of the Donetsk regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, told social media the same day that nine wounded were rescued from the Chasiv Yar building.
Ukrainian soldiers run after a missile attack on a residential area in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. (AP: Nariman El-Mofty)
In Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, and its surrounding region, Russian attacks hit residential buildings, killing four civilians and injuring nine, Ukrainian officials said.
“The Russians continue their tactics of intimidating the peaceful population of the Kharkiv region,” Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote in the Telegram on Tuesday.
Ukrainian authorities also said Russian fire hit the southern city of Mykolaiv on Tuesday morning and affected residential buildings.
A firefighter is working to put out a fire caused by a Russian military attack in Mykolaiv. (Press Service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine)
Twelve people were injured as a result of the Russian bombing, some of the rockets hit two medical facilities, regional governor Vitaliy Kim told Telegram.
The sirens of the airstrikes sounded on Tuesday in the western city of Lviv, the first daytime sirens in more than a week, and in other areas of Ukraine as Russian forces continued to advance.
In eastern Luhansk, “fighting continues near the villages” on the administrative border with neighboring Donetsk, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said.
“The Russian army burns everything in its path. The artillery bombardment does not stop and sometimes continues for four or six hours straight,” Haidai said.
The intelligence briefing of the British Ministry of Defense said that Russia had seized the Ukrainian city of Hryhorivka and continued to push towards the cities of the Donetsk province of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
“Russian forces are likely to maintain military pressure on Ukrainian forces as they regroup and reconstitute for new offensives in the near future,” the intelligence briefing said.
AP