Ukraine’s military’s southern command said a rocket attack targeted the warehouse in Russian-controlled Nova Kakhovka, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) east of the Black Sea port city of Kherson, which is also held by Russian forces. The accuracy of the strike suggests that Ukrainian forces used US-supplied High Mobility Multiple Launch Artillery Systems, or HIMARS, to strike the area. Ukraine has signaled in recent days that it may launch a counteroffensive to retake territory in the country’s south as Russia devotes resources to seizing the entire eastern Donbass region. Russia’s Tass news agency gave a different account of the blast in Nova Kakhovka, saying a mineral fertilizer storage facility exploded and that a market, a hospital and homes were damaged by the strike. Some of the fertilizer ingredients can be used for ammunition. A satellite photo taken Tuesday and analyzed by The Associated Press showed significant damage. A huge crater lay exactly where a large warehouse-like structure once stood in the city, Ukraine now has eight of the HIMAR systems, a highly accurate truck-mounted missile launcher, and Washington has promised to send four more. Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian shelling over the past 24 hours has killed at least 16 civilians and wounded 48 others, Ukraine’s presidential office said in a briefing on Tuesday morning. Cities and towns in five southeastern regions came under Russian fire, the office said. Nine civilians were killed and two others wounded in Donetsk province, which makes up half of Donbas. Russian rocket attacks targeted the cities of Sloviansk and Toretsk, where a kindergarten was hit, the presidential office said. The British military said on Tuesday that Russia was continuing to make “small, incremental gains” in Donetsk, where fierce fighting led the province’s governor last week to urge its 350,000 remaining residents to move to safer places in western Ukraine. But many in the Donbass, a fertile industrial region in eastern Ukraine made up of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, refuse — or can’t — to flee, despite dozens of civilians being killed and wounded each week. The death toll from a Russian rocket attack on an apartment building in Donetsk province on Saturday has risen to 34. The head of the Donetsk regional military command, Pavlo Kirilenko, made the announcement on social media, saying nine wounded people were rescued from the building in Chasiv Yar. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and the surrounding area, Russian strikes hit residential buildings, killing four civilians and wounding nine, Ukrainian officials said. “The Russians continue their tactics of intimidation of the peaceful population of the Kharkiv region,” Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram on Tuesday. Ukrainian authorities also said Russian fire hit the southern city of Mykolaiv on Tuesday morning, hitting residential buildings. Twelve people were injured as a result of the Russian shelling, with some of the missiles hitting two medical facilities, regional governor Vitaly Kim said on Telegram. Air raid sirens sounded on Tuesday in the western city of Lviv – the first daytime sirens there in more than a week – and in other parts 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 told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “The Russian army is burning everything in its path. The artillery barrage does not stop and sometimes goes on for four to six hours,” Haidai said. The British Ministry of Defense briefing said that Russia captured the Ukrainian town of Hryhorivka and continued to push towards the towns of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in the Donetsk region. “Russian forces are likely maintaining military pressure on Ukrainian forces while regrouping and regrouping for further attacks in the near future,” the intelligence briefing said. However, Russia may rely more on private military contractors such as the Wagner Group to avoid a general mobilization, the British ministry said. Western officials have accused Wagner of using mercenaries to fight in Africa and elsewhere. In other developments: — The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Iran next week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin would travel to Tehran next Tuesday to take part in a tripartite meeting with the leaders of Iran and Turkey, a form of talks on Syria. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that Russia is seeking hundreds of Iranian surveillance drones, including weapons-capable ones, for use in Ukraine. — Russian and Turkish military representatives plan to meet in Istanbul on Wednesday to discuss transporting Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said. Pyotr Ilyichyov, head of the ministry’s international organizations department, told Russia’s Interfax news agency that “representatives of Ukraine, as well as UN (officials) in an observer role” are also expected to participate in the talks. Ilyichyov reiterated that Moscow was ready “to help ensure the navigation of foreign merchant ships to export Ukrainian grain.”
Jon Gambrell in Lviv, Ukraine and Isabel DeBre in Tehran, Iran contributed to this report.
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