WAR IN UKRAINE
KYIV, Ukraine — Seven people – including a 23-day-old girl – were killed in Russian shelling in Ukraine's southern Kherson region on Sunday, the country's Internal Affairs Ministry said.
Artillery shelling in the village of Shiroka Balka, on the banks of the Dnieper River, killed a family — a husband, wife, 12-year-old boy and 23-day-old girl — and another resident.
Two men were killed in the neighboring village of Stanislav, where a woman was also wounded.
The attack on Kherson province followed Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar's comments on Saturday attempting to quell rumors that Ukrainian forces had landed on the occupied left (east) bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region.
"Again, the expert hype around the left bank in the Kherson region began. There are no reasons for excitement," she said.
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Kherson regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said Sunday that three people had been wounded in Russian attacks on the province on Saturday.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian military officials said Saturday evening that Kyiv's forces had made progress in the south, claiming some success near a key village in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and capturing other unspecified territories.
Ukraine's General Staff said they had "partial success" around the tactically important Robotyne area in the Zaporizhzhia region, a key Russian stronghold that Ukraine needs to retake in order to continue pushing south towards Melitopol.
"There are liberated territories. The defense forces are working," General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine's southern forces, said of the southern front.
Battles in recent weeks have taken place on multiple points along the over 600-mile front line as Ukraine wages a counteroffensive with Western-supplied weapons and Western-trained troops against Russian forces who invaded nearly 18 months ago.
Ukrainian troops have made only incremental gains since launching a counteroffensive in early June.
Meanwhile, a Russian warship on Sunday fired warning shots at a Palau-flagged cargo ship in the south-western Black Sea, the first time Russia has fired on a merchant ship beyond Ukraine since exiting a landmark UN-brokered grain deal last month.
According to Russia's Defense Ministry, the Sukru Okan was heading northward to the Ukrainian Danube River port of Izmail.
"The captain of the dry-cargo ship did not respond to the request to stop for inspection for the carriage of prohibited goods. To force the ship to stop, warning fire was opened from automatic small arms from a Russian warship," Russia's Ministry of Defense wrote on Telegram, adding that the ship later stopped and allowed an inspection team to board.
Four weeks ago, Moscow withdrew from a key export agreement that allowed Ukraine to ship millions of tons of grain across the Black Sea for sale on world markets.
