Kyiv: According to Ukrainian officials, on Tuesday, Russia attacked military and infrastructure targets in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, as well as other regions of the nation, including western regions far from the front lines.
In addition to commending Ukraine's air defences for shooting down more than 30 drones, President Volodymyr Zelensky resolutely asserted that Ukrainian forces were obliterating Russian forces in the east and south, the two main theatres of the conflict. Both the deputy defence minister and his commander of land forces reported that their counteroffensives had been successful.
According to the Russian Defence Ministry, Russian forces attacked and destroyed eight ammunition warehouses throughout Ukraine in the previous day and thwarted Ukrainian attacks in three other locations.
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It claimed that Ukrainian forces had attempted to attack the southern Zaporizhzhia region and the eastern city of Donetsk, which is controlled by Russia, but had been repelled. Drones attacked the Kyiv region over the course of more than four hours, according to Zelensky's office.
A woman was killed and four civilians were injured when Ukrainian forces used drones to attack the Russian-controlled town of Nova Kakhovka in the southern Kherson region, according to local Russian-appointed authorities.
The Ukrainian actions against Russian defensive positions in the south and east, which are the first phases of a counteroffensive intended to drive President Vladimir Putin's troops back from territory taken since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, were the focus of attention at the time the Russian attacks took place.
Eight settlements and 113 square kilometres (44 square miles) of land, according to Kyiv, have been reclaimed from Russian forces. However, the most recent attacks demonstrated that Russia was able to wage war away from the front lines. Zelensky claimed that Ukrainian forces "in the south and east are actively destroying the enemy, physically purging Ukraine" in his daily video address.
"Destroying terrorists is part of a defence against terrorism. Furthermore, it ensures that Ukraine will never be the target of evil from the state of evil.
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The commander of Ukraine's land forces, General Oleksander Syrskyi, posted on Telegram that his troops were making progress on the flanks of the devastated Bakhmut, in the country's east, which was taken by Russian mercenaries last month after months of conflict.
He claimed that Ukrainian forces were fending off increasingly ferocious Russian assaults close to Kupiansk in the northeast. Ukrainian forces in the south are "gradually, in small steps, but very confidently making advances," according to deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar. We could even use the metaphor that we are stealing every square metre of enemy territory.
Maliar claimed that towns had been mined in addition to vast areas by Russian forces. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, accused Russia of "mining" the pond used to cool the reactors at the Russian-run Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
According to Zelensky's office, the Russian drone attacks on the Kyiv area caused damage to a number of commercial and administrative structures as well as some private homes. There was no mention of any casualties from the airstrikes that occurred overnight. In Lviv, away from the front lines and about 70 kilometres (43 miles) from the Polish border, a "critically important facility" was hit, according to regional governor Maksym Kozytskiy, who did not provide further information.
More than two dozen Iranian-made Shahed drones were present in the Kyiv region, according to the air force, where Ukrainian air defences had been active.
According to the Energy Ministry, drone debris damaged power lines in the Mykolaiv region in the south and the Kyiv region, knocking out electricity for hundreds of people. According to the air force, Iskander and S-300 missiles from Russia also hit infrastructure in the city of Zaporizhzhia in the southeast. According to the Ukrainian military, Russia launched seven missiles at Zaporizhzhia.
Sergei Shoigu, the minister of defence for Russia, claimed Moscow knew that Ukraine intended to attack the Russian-controlled Crimea with longer-range US and British missiles and threatened to retaliate if this occurred. In 2014, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine on the Black Sea, but does not count it as part of its "special military operation" in eastern and southern Ukraine.
At a gathering of military officials, Shoigu said, "The use of these missiles outside the area of our special military operation would mean that the United States and Britain would be fully drawn into the conflict and would entail immediate strikes on decision-making centres in Ukraine."
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Shoigu added that since June 4, when Moscow considers Ukraine's counteroffensive to have begun, Ukrainian armed forces had launched 263 attacks on Russian positions. However, he claimed that it had "not achieved its goals." Ukraine claims to have taken back eight villages.