Kyiv: On Tuesday, the Ukrainian military reported that it had destroyed a Russian ammunition depot in southern Ukraine, resulting in a massive explosion captured on social media, while rescuers said the death toll from a weekend Russian strike in the country's east had risen to 45. The depot in Russian-held Nova Kakhovka was targeted by a rocket strike overnight, according to the Ukrainian military's southern command. Nova Kakhovka is about 55 kilometres (35 miles) east of Kherson, a Black Sea port city also occupied by Russian forces. 

The precision of the strike suggested that Ukrainian forces used multiple-launch High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, supplied by the United States. Ukraine has recently indicated that it may launch a counteroffensive to reclaim territory in the south as Russia continues to bombard the eastern Donbas region. 

According to Russia's Tass news agency, a mineral fertiliser storage facility exploded and a market, hospital, and houses were damaged in the blast in Nova Kakhovka. Some fertiliser ingredients can be used to make ammunition.Ukraine now has eight HIMAR systems, which are truck-mounted missile launchers with high accuracy, and the United States has promised to send four more. 

Explosions were reported late Tuesday in Luhansk, a city in the Donbas controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. Videos were posted on social media. According to the Russian news agency Interfax, a spokesman for the separatist forces, Andrei Marochko, the Ukrainian army dealt a "massive blow" to the air defence system in Luhansk. He stated that there had been no reports of casualties. The Ukrainian government and military provided no immediate information.

The occupiers have already experienced modern artillery, and their rear will not be safe anywhere on our occupied territory," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. They have felt that our intelligence officers' operations in defending their homeland are an order of magnitude greater than any of their special operations.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian shelling over the past 24 hours has killed at least 16 civilians and injured 48 more, according to a Tuesday morning update from Ukraine's presidential office. According to the office, Russian forces attacked cities and towns in five southeast regions.

In Donetsk province, which comprises half of the Donbas, nine civilians were killed and two others were injured. According to the presidential office, Russian rocket attacks targeted the cities of Sloviansk and Toretsk, where a kindergarten was hit. 

The death toll from a Russian rocket attack on a Donetsk apartment building on Saturday has risen to 45, according to the emergency services agency late Tuesday. It was reported that workers discovered more bodies and rescued nine people while digging through the rubble of the five-story building in Chasiv Yar throughout the day.

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