Ukrainian servicemen fire a D-20 howitzer towards Russian troops at a position near the town of Bakhmut on July 11.STRINGER/Reuters
Russia launched a drone strike on Kyiv early on Wednesday, and an old man was killed in Russian shelling in southern Ukraine as President Volodymyr Zelensky met NATO leaders in Lithuania, Ukrainian officials said.
There were no deaths in the second attack on the capital in successive days. But an 81-year-old man was killed and his 82-year-old wife wounded in shelling of the southern city of Kherson, Kherson region governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
Eighteen people, including six children, were also wounded in a Russian attack on a residential area in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia at about 1:00 p.m. (1000 GMT), Zaporizhzhia region governor Yuriy Malashko said.
The Russian shelling and heavy fighting did not stop as Zelensky was meeting NATO leaders to discuss security threats posed by Moscow, which denounced the Western military alliance’s summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Ukraine shot down 11 out of 15 Iranian-made Shahed drones fired by Russia overnight, and two people were hurt in a fire caused by the attack on Kyiv, officials said.
“A difficult night … The enemy attacked our area with ‘Shaheds’,” Ihor Taburets, the military head of the Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s military said on Wednesday morning Russian forces had carried out 65 air strikes and fired at least 71 times from heavy weapon rocket systems at Ukrainian troop positions and populated areas along front lines in the previous 24 hours.
On Tuesday, Russia drones also attacked Kyiv and the southern port of Odesa, and Kherson came under artillery fire.
In the latest fighting, a Ukrainian military spokesperson reported some “success” near the Russian-occupied eastern city of Bakhmut but gave few details as Kyiv’s troops pressed on with a counteroffensive launched early last month.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports and denies deliberately targeting civilians. Russia’s TASS news agency cited military groupings as saying they had repelled several Ukrainian attacks in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine over the past day.
Ukraine also reported on Wednesday some success in fighting near the Russian-occupied eastern city of Bakhmut as its troops press on with a counteroffensive against Moscow’s forces.
“The (Ukrainian) Defense Forces continue to conduct offensive operations north and south of the city of Bakhmut,” Andriy Kovaliov, a spokesperson for the armed forces general staff, said.
“In the directions of Bila Hora-Andriivka and Bila Hora-Kurdyumivka, they have had success in some places,” he said, referring to sectors of the front line south of Bakhmut.
He said Russian forces were putting up strong resistance, moving units and troops, and deploying reserves as Ukraine presses on with the counteroffensive launched in May. He did not say how much ground Ukraine had gained in the latest combat.
Russia captured Bakhmut in May after months of intense fighting that devastated the city, seen by Moscow as a stepping-stone to further advances following its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Russian accounts from the front line on Tuesday spoke of clashes but referred to a successful defence of areas near Bakhmut.
Reuters could not verify the situation on the battlefield, and Russia has not acknowledged Ukrainian gains.
The Wagner mercenary group is completing its handover of weapons to Russia’s regular armed forces, the Defence Ministry said on Wednesday, more than two weeks after the group staged a brief armed mutiny.
In a statement accompanied by video showing tanks, rockets and other heavy weapons, the ministry said Wagner had transferred more than 2,000 pieces of equipment and over 2,500 tonnes of ammunition.
If genuine, the handover is the most concrete sign to date that Wagner - whose fighters have waged some of the fiercest and bloodiest battles of Russia’s war in Ukraine - is pulling out of combat operations there.
It follows a deal with President Vladimir Putin under which Wagner and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had savagely criticised Russia’s defence chiefs over their conduct of the war, called off their short-lived mutiny last month.
During the June 23-24 revolt, the mercenaries took control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and shot down an unspecified number of military helicopters, killing their pilots, as they advanced towards Moscow.