Russian strikes on Ukraine overnight from Sunday to Monday left one dead and three injured in the southern region of Kherson and 34 injured in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, local authorities said.
Moscow fired missiles in the early hours of the day at Ukrainian towns, which Kiev forces say they mostly neutralized.
“The Russian army targeted the living quarters of populated areas of the (Kherson) region and an official building in the center (of the city) of Kherson,” the head of the local military administration said on Telegram. , Oleksandr Prokudin.
“As a result of this Russian aggression, one person died and three others, including a child, were injured,” he added, saying the city of Kherson was bombed eight times in some 24 hours.
In the east, in the Pavlograd district, Russian missile fire injured at least 34 people, including five children, the youngest being an eight-year-old girl, Serhiy Lyssak, the head of the the Dnipropetrovsk region.
In the city of Pavlograd, “19 multi-storey buildings, 25 private houses, six schools and preschools, as well as five shops were damaged”, he lamented.
18 cruise missiles
During the night from Sunday to Monday, “around 2:30 a.m.”, “the Russian invaders attacked Ukraine with their strategic aviation” which fired “18 cruise missiles”, of which 15 were destroyed, explained on Telegram the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Army Valery Zalouzhny.
The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, said it had carried out long-range precision strikes on Ukrainian ammunition production facilities.
“All assigned facilities have been impacted,” he continued in a statement.
Over the winter, Ukraine beefed up its anti-aircraft defences, including with US Patriot systems, after appealing to its Western allies for help in preventing its energy grid from being bombed.
Russia still controls part of the Kherson region after withdrawing from the eponymous city in November.
Most of the fighting in Ukraine in recent weeks has focused on the eastern Donbass region, particularly the city of Bakhmout.
The Russians have very gradually advanced in this largely destroyed industrial city, which they claim to control at around 80%.
The commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, Oleksandre Syrsky, for his part said on Monday that his men had carried out small counterattacks there.
Russia “is failing to take (full) control of the city”, he said, stressing that the situation there was still “quite complicated”.