Ukraine strikes Russian-held Kherson as Kyiv readies southern counter-attack
India Today
The strike hit an ammunition dump in the town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region and killed 52 people, Ukraine's military said.
Ukraine said on Tuesday it had carried out a long-range rocket strike against Russian forces and military equipment in southern Ukraine territory. It says it is planning to retake in a counter-offensive using hundreds of thousands of troops.
The strike hit an ammunition dump in the town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region and killed 52 people, Ukraine's military said. It came after Washington supplied Ukraine with advanced HIMARS mobile artillery systems which Kyiv says its forces are using with growing efficiency.
The town's Russia-installed authorities gave a different version of events. The Russian TASS news agencies reported they said that at least seven people had been killed in the attack and around 70 injured. A Russian-backed official in Kherson said at least seven people had been killed and that civilians and civilian infrastructure had been hit.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.
The area Ukraine struck is one that Russia seized after launching on Feb. 24 what Moscow called "a special military operation" in its fellow ex-Soviet neighbour and is of strategic importance with Black Sea access, a once thriving agricultural industry and a location just north of Russian-annexed Crimea.
Ukrainian government officials have spoken of efforts to marshal up to a million troops and of their aim to recapture southern parts of the country now under Russian control.
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