Artillery and rocket fire intensifies in Zaporizhzhia as Russia claims it’s eliminating Ukrainian positions
The Ukrainian official leading the regional military administration in Zaporizhzhia, Yurii Malashko, said Thursday that the Russian military had shelled several towns and villages in the region, injuring civilians and damaging property. The Russians have claimed they are eliminating deployment points of the Ukrainian military.
Indirect fire in the region has intensified ahead of what observers expect to be a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
"After 70 attacks, more than three dozen destructions were recorded in 20 settlements," Malashko said on Telegram. "The enemy fired 60 times from artillery, 5 times from multiple rocket launchers, launched 3 air strikes and one missile attack, and carried out one attack from a UAV."
Malashko said that in the village of Malokaterynivka, eight people were injured by cluster shells. Three of them were ambulance workers who went to the scene, he said. There was also damage in the settlements of Huliaipole, Orikhiv and Stepnohirsk.
What Russia says: The Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday issued a statement claiming that Russian air defenses and Akatsiya self-propelled artillery crews had destroyed Ukraine’s temporary deployment point close to Huliaipole. The ministry claimed that an ammunition depot of the Ukrainian’s 102th Artillery Brigade had been destroyed.
"In South Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia directions, the attacks, launched by aviation and artillery of the Vostok Group of Forces have resulted in the neutralisation of the enemy units close to Vuhledar and Prechistivka (Donetsk People's Republic), Malinivka, Huliapole, Novodanilivka and Kamianske (Zaporizhzhia region)," the ministry claimed.
A Russian military blogger said that elsewhere in the south – in Kherson region – the Russian air force had used powerful FAB-500 bombs to attack Ukrainian storage facilities. CNN is unable to independently verify the claim.
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