Ukrainian prosecutors said they are investigating attacks on civilians in two cities in the northeastern part of Kharkiv Oblast, and the president Volodymyr Zelensky announced successes of the troops fighting a new Russian assault there today, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
In his evening video address, Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces have gained more confidence, especially in the Kharkiv region.
However, Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces captured the village of Staritsa in the Kharkiv region today, eight days after the start of a new Russian offensive in the area.
"The occupier is losing its infantry and equipment, which is a tangible loss, although, as in 2022, it counted on rapid progress in our lands," Zelensky said.
The president said that Ukrainian forces had repelled a Russian offensive in eastern Donetsk region, around the town of Chasov Yar, considered a key target in the Russian campaign. "Our soldiers destroyed more than 20 units of armored vehicles of the occupier," he said.
Reuters notes that it cannot independently verify this data.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian prosecutors said they were investigating an airstrike in a residential area of the regional capital Kharkiv that injured five people, including a 13-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy.
The regional prosecutor said that in the town of Vovchansk, just 5 km from the Russian border, Russian shelling killed a 60-year-old woman and wounded three other civilians. A 59-year-old man was injured in the village of Ukrainskoe, the prosecutor's office announced.
In a strike by a Russian drone in the village of Stanislav in the southern Kherson region, a man was killed and a woman was injured, announced regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.