At least three people died, and 28 others were wounded on Monday after Russian shelling hit residential areas of the northeast Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, the regional governor Oleh Vasylovych Synyehubov said.
Previously on Saturday evening, a Russian rocket strike on the five-story building in the town of Chasiv Yar, in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, killed 15 people, leaving rescuers in search of two dozen people, including a child, feared trapped under the rubble.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, called the shelling another terrorist attack, stressing that Russia should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian infantry brigade said on Monday that they’ve recaptured the village of Ivanivka in the southern Russian-occupied region of Kherson, which media couldn’t immediately confirm since there are several villages in the area named Ivanivka. One of them is located along the front line
The news comes as Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged on Sunday Kherson’s residents to evacuate ahead of the announced Ukrainian counterattack against Russian forces, warning that women and children definitely shouldn’t be there risking to become human shields amidst the expected fighting and artillery shelling in the coming days.
The city of Kherson, located northwest of the Crimean Peninsula, had around 300,000 citizens before the war though it’s unclear how many residents remained in the region.