Using US-supplied missiles, the Ukrainian military claims to have struck a Russian weapons storage in the southern city of Nova Kakhovka, killing scores of Russian soldiers.
However, Russian occupation officials claim that homes and stores were struck, resulting in seven deaths and up to eighty injuries.
It was unable to confirm the amount of damage or number of casualties.
On social media, unverified footage of multiple massive explosions was shared.
Mykhaylo Podolyak, an advisor to the Ukrainian president, ascribed the strike to the US-supplied Himars multiple rocket launcher and spoke of a “reality collision” for the “second army” of the globe. Katerina Gubareva, a Russian-appointed administrator in the southern province of Kherson, accused Ukraine of bombing “innocent cities with American weapons.”
Himars is considerably more accurate than Russia’s comparable systems, and it has already been attributed to a series of recent attacks that penetrated deeply into Russian-held territory.
During the initial weeks of the invasion, the Russians conquered large portions of the Kherson region, but Ukrainian forces started a counteroffensive as Russia focused on its military advance into eastern Ukraine. Kyiv has encouraged locals to evacuate the area to avoid the counterattack.
Ukrainian officials dismissed the claim made by Russian-appointed officials that warehouses carrying the mineral fertilizer saltpeter had detonated rather than an armaments store.
Vladimir Leontyev, who was placed in command of the Kherson region, reported to the Russian news agency Tass that scores of individuals had been rendered homeless and the city had sustained extensive damage. Another Russian-backed official, Kirill Stremousov, reported that seven individuals were still missing.
Uncertainty surrounds the identities of those killed in the explosions, but Ukrainian military sources claim that more than fifty Russian soldiers were killed and military equipment was damaged. Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman in Odesa, stated that Nova Kakhovka had lost its ammunition storage.
Even though Russian claims of damage to civilian buildings could not be corroborated, both parties acknowledged that a Himars launcher was involved in the attack. The first M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (Himars) arrived in Ukraine at the end of June and were instantly linked to explosions at Russian ammo dumps and command centers located up to 70 kilometers from the front line.
Russian television reported that Monday night’s attack was so intense that windows were blasted out within a 2km radius (1.25 miles), apartments were wrecked, and hospitals and a market were damaged. Russia has often accused Ukraine of launching attacks against its civilians.
The Russian news outlet Ria Novosti published images of allegedly damaged warehouses from a humanitarian aid center. Serhiy Khlan, a local Ukrainian official, dismissed as propaganda Russian claims that a hospital and residential structures had been damaged.
Mr. Khlan urged locals to leave the regions under attack, claiming that individuals whose windows had been blown out were ecstatic upon realizing that Ukrainian forces were nearby.
In the meantime, Russia’s bombing of Ukrainian cities has killed additional lives. Local officials report that the death toll from Saturday’s attack on a five-story apartment building in the eastern village of Chasiv Yar has increased to 45, including one kid. Nine individuals have been extracted from the rubble.
Early Tuesday morning, the southern city of Mykolaiv was struck, leaving 12 persons injured.
Multiple holes in the ground and shrapnel damage were observed in the area, as a result of what seemed to be cluster bombs, she said: “People tell me it was the heaviest night of shelling they can recall.”
