Kyiv: Seven civilians, including three children, were killed in a Ukrainian attack on Monday night on a Russian-controlled village in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk region, Russian-established officials said on Tuesday.

According to the representative of the Luhansk region at the Joint Center of Control and Coordination (JCCC), the strike struck Krasnorichensk, which was occupied by Russian forces.

The representative claimed in a statement that seven civilians, including three children (twins, a girl and a boy born in 2021, and a girl born in 2015), were killed as a result of artillery shelling on the village of Krasnorychenske by Ukraine's armed forces. ,

The failed Minsk Agreement, an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to mediate and reduce conflict between separatists backed by Russia and Ukraine, which began after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, included the creation of the JCCC.

Earlier, Ukraine claimed that its troops had advanced east into recently ceded Russian territory, opening the door to a possible attack on Moscow's occupying forces in the Donbass as Kyiv seeks to acquire more Western weapons. .

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a televised address late Monday that "the occupiers are clearly in a panic," adding that he was now focusing on "speeding up" in the liberated areas.

"How fast are our soldiers moving. The speed at which normal life was restored," said Zelensky.

Ukraine's president also suggested he would urge nations to expedite the delivery of arms and aid during a video address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.

According to Zelensky, "we are making every effort to see that Ukraine's needs are met at all levels - defence, financial, economic and diplomatic."

According to Serhi Gaidai, governor of Luhansk province, Ukraine's armed forces have taken full control of the village of Bilohorivka and are preparing to take back the entire province from Russian occupiers. The city of Lysychansk, which the Russians captured in July after several weeks of fierce fighting, is only 10 km to the west of the village.

There will be competition for every centimeter, Gaidai warned on Telegram. He said, "The opposition is defending itself. So, we will not just go in.

The industrialized eastern region of the Donbass, which includes Luhansk and the neighboring Donetsk province, is what Moscow refers to as a "special military operation" in Ukraine, and is the area that Moscow intends to seize as its main objective. .

After a swift retaliation this month that drove Russian forces out of northeastern Kharkiv province, Ukrainian forces have begun advancing into Luhansk.

A Moscow-backed administration in the Donbass called for an immediate referendum on the region joining Russia as a sign of concern over the success of Ukraine's most recent attack.

Denis Pushilin, the head of the Moscow-based Donetsk separatist administration, urged his counterpart in Luhansk to coordinate his efforts to set up a referendum on joining Russia.

According to the General Staff of Ukraine, the fighting on the previous day took place only in the Donetsk region, and Russian attacks were thwarted close to the settlements of Mayersk, Vesele, Kurdyumivka and Novomikhailivka.

Ukraine's armed forces claimed to have sunk a barge carrying Russian troops and equipment across a river near Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region, where another Ukrainian counterattack is proceeding more slowly.

According to a statement posted by the military on Facebook, "Efforts to build a crossing were halted after Ukrainian forces failed to withstand fire. The barge ... joined the occupiers' submarine force. "

The British military said on Tuesday that the Russian Black Sea Fleet had to move some of its submarines from the Crimean port of Sevastopol to Novorossiysk in southern Russia's Krasnodor Krai as a result of improving Ukrainian long-range strike capability.

Ukraine is still evaluating what happened in areas that had been under Russian control for months before a Russian military retreat earlier this month radically changed the nature of the conflict.

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