Six people were killed in a Russian attack on a market in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin announced on Tuesday.
The regional Prosecutor’s Office reported that six civilians had been killed, and that six other people were injured and were being treated by emergency services.
Prokudin said Russian forces had shelled Kherson, striking a market in the city centre at about 9am on Tuesday, when Ukrainians across the country were observing a minute’s silence to honour the memory of fallen soldiers. “This is yet another proof of our enemy’s meanness and lowness”, Prokudin said.
The Ukrainian Air Force (UAF) said that Russian forces had attacked Ukraine overnight on Monday with 32 Shahed drones, launched from Russia and annexed Crimea.
Air defence systems shot down 29 of the drones over the Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Mykolayiv, Kherson, Poltava, Sumy and Dnipro regions and the other three drones didn’t cause any damage, according to the UAF.
To mark the two-year anniversary of Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, including Kherson, the Russian-installed governor of the occupied part of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, wrote on Tuesday that its citizens could now count on a secure future as part of Russia.
While the city of Kherson was occupied by Russian forces in the early days of the war, Ukrainian forces liberated it again in November 2022, forcing the Russian military to retreat across the Dnipro River. Since then, Ukraine has controlled the region on the right bank of the Dnipro while Russia has controlled the left.