A civilian was killed in a drone strike over the town of Graivoron in Russia's Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced.
„A car caught fire in the town of Graivoron after being hit by an FPV drone. Local residents tried to put out the fire, but at that moment a second attack by an enemy drone occurred, in which a person was killed,“ he wrote on the MAX platform.
Russian troops are advancing towards Fedorovka in the Donetsk People's Republic from the areas of three settlements: Novomarkovo, Markovo and Maiskoye, military expert Andrey Marochko reported.
He added that Kiev is conducting a maneuver defense in this sector.
“Serious fighting continues around Fedorovka. We are conducting offensive operations, while the enemy is trying to conduct a maneuver defense. We are currently building on what has been gained in the Markovo and Novomarkovo areas, so that we can advance relatively safely to the west. There are also minor tactical gains near Maiskoye, which is southeast of Fedorovka,“ he said.
Earlier, Marochko said that Russian forces had broken through 1.5 kilometers of enemy defenses near Fedorovka and had begun fighting to capture it.
Foreign servicemen from the Ukrainian armed forces are practically absent from the fighting in the Kherson sector, Russian security forces told TASS.
“The situation in the Kherson sector is such that mercenaries from the right bank of the Dnieper have almost disappeared since March of this year,“ the agency's source said.
He specified that most of them had been redeployed to more “hot spots“. “However, hundreds of mercenaries were destroyed in their temporary deployment points by drone artillery and air strikes“, the security forces representative added.
Earlier, Kherson Oblast Governor Volodymyr Saldo said that the number of mercenaries in the Kiev-controlled right-wing part of Kherson Oblast had decreased after the reform of the International Legion units and the transfer of foreign volunteers to the assault aviation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
In February, the Ukrainian Ground Forces confirmed that the Foreign Legion had been “integrated into assault units“. According to Russian security officials, the Ukrainian command has massively transferred Foreign Legion personnel to assault units due to heavy losses at the front. On February 4, Russian security services reported that foreign mercenaries in Ukraine's armed forces had not received their salaries for six months.