Artillery shelling in the village of Shiroka Balka, on the banks of the Dnipro River, killed a family – a husband, wife, 12-year-old boy and the 23-day-old girl – and another resident.
Two men were killed in the neighbouring village of Stanislav, where a woman was also wounded.
The attack on Kherson province followed Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar’s comments on Saturday attempting to quell rumours that Ukrainian forces had landed on the occupied left (east) bank of the Dnipro in the Kherson region.
“Again, the expert hype around the left bank in the Kherson region began. There are no reasons for excitement,” she said.
Kherson’s regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Sunday that three people had been wounded in Russian attacks on the province on Saturday.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian military officials said on Saturday evening that Kyiv’s forces had made progress in the south, claiming some success near a key village in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and capturing other unspecified territories.
Ukraine’s general staff said they had “partial success” around the tactically important Robotyne area in the Zaporizhzhia region, a Russian stronghold that Ukraine needs to retake in order to continue pushing south towards Melitopol.
“There are liberated territories. The defence forces are working,” Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine’s southern forces, said of the southern front.
Battles in recent weeks have taken place on multiple points along the more than 1,000km (600mile) frontline as Ukraine wages a counteroffensive with western-supplied weapons and western-trained troops against the Russian forces who invaded nearly 18 months ago.
Ukrainian troops have made only incremental gains since launching a counteroffensive in early June.
Meanwhile, a Russian warship on Sunday fired warning shots at a Palau-flagged cargo ship in the south-western Black Sea, the first time Russia has fired on a merchant ship beyond Ukraine since exiting a landmark UN-brokered grain deal last month.
According to Russia’s defence ministry, the Sukru Okan was heading northwards to the Ukrainian Danube River port of Izmail.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence wrote on Telegram: “The captain of the dry-cargo ship did not respond to the request to stop for inspection for the carriage of prohibited goods. To force the ship to stop, warning fire was opened from automatic small arms from a Russian warship.” The ministry added that the ship later stopped and allowed an inspection team to board.
Four weeks ago, Moscow withdrew from a key export agreement that allowed Ukraine to ship millions of tons of grain across the Black Sea for sale on world markets. In the wake of that withdrawal, Russia carried out repeated strikes on Ukrainian ports, including Odesa, and declared wide areas of the Black Sea unsafe for shipping.
In Russia on Sunday, local officials reported that air defence systems shot down three drones over the Belgorod region and one over the neighbouring Kursk region, both of which border Ukraine.
Later on Sunday afternoon, local officials in the Belgorod province reported an explosion in an apartment building in the regional capital, also called Belgorod.
Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the facade of the apartment building had been damaged, windows had been shattered and air-conditioning units broken. Fifteen cars parked nearby also sustained damage, but there were no casualties. Gladkov said that the cause of the explosion was under investigation.
The Wagner mercenary group has played a key role in Russia’s military campaign, but British defence officials said there was a realistic possibility” that the Kremlin was no longer providing it with funding, according to British defence officials.
In its latest intelligence briefing, the Ministry of Defence said it believed Wagner was “likely moving towards a downsizing and reconfiguration process” in order to save money, and that the Kremlin had “acted against some other business interests” of Wagner the group’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin. The officials assessed that Belarusian authorities were the “second most plausible paymasters”.
Thousands of Wagner fighters arrived in Belarus, a Russian ally, under a deal that ended their an armed rebellion in late June and allowed them and Prigozhin to avoid criminal charges.
Source: theguardian
Author: AP
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