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ussian shelling in the region of Kherson has killed seven people including a baby and left dozens wounded, Ukrainian officials have said.
Kyiv reclaimed part of Kherson from Russian occupation last November but Kremlin troops have continued shelling the regional capital and areas around it from across the Dnipro River.
The dead in the latest attack included a couple, their 23-day-old child and another man in the village of Shyroka Balka, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. The couple’s 12-year-old son was critically wounded and died in hospital, he added.
The regional government has declared a period of mourning on Monday after the deadly shelling on Sunday,
Mr Klymenko wrote in a post on Telegram: “The terrorists will never willingly stop killing civilians. The terrorists must be stopped. With force. They don’t understand anything else.”
Two people, including the pastor of a church, were killed in the neighbouring village of Stanislav, according to Governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
Three people each in Kherson city and the town of Beryslav were wounded, according to the interior ministry, and casualties were also reported in four other settlements across the region.
“Today the Kherson region shuddered from terrible news. Kherson, Veletenske, Zolota Balka, Stanislav, Komyshany, Shyroka Balka…” Mr Prokudin wrote on Telegram, listing the settlements hit in Sunday’s attacks.
The attack on Kherson province followed Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar’s remarks on Saturday where she moved to deny rumours that Ukrainian forces had landed on the occupied left (east) bank of the Dnipro in the Kherson region.
Ukraine‘s military launched a counteroffensive in June to reclaim Russian-occupied territory across the southeast but has not made any significant attempts to cross the Dnipro to reach the other side of the Kherson region.
Thousands were evacuated from the region after a river breach which Ukraine claimed was caused by the Russians blowing up the Kakhovka dam in June.
This created a humanitarian crisis with homes washed away and the population facing unsanitary conditions and disease.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian military officials said on Saturday evening that Kyiv’s forces had made progress in the south, claiming some success near a key village in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and capturing other unspecified territories.
Ukraine’s General Staff said they had “partial success” around the tactically important Robotyne area in the Zaporizhzhia region, a key Russian stronghold that Ukraine needs to retake in order to continue pushing south towards Melitopol.
“There are liberated territories. The defence forces are working,” General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine’s southern forces, said of the southern front.
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