Kyiv launches rocket attack on Russian-held area

Ukraine launched long-range rocket attacks on Russian forces in southern Ukraine and destroyed an ammunition store, its military said, as Russia continued to pound the country’s east.

The strike on Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region killed 52 people, Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday. The town’s Russia-installed authorities said that at least seven people had been killed and around 70 injured, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.

The strike came after Washington supplied Ukraine with advanced HIMARS mobile artillery systems which Kyiv says its forces are using with growing efficiency.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.

“Based on the results of our rocket and artillery units, the enemy lost 52 (people), an Msta-B howitzer, a mortar and seven armoured and other vehicles, as well as an ammunition depot in Nova Kakhovka,” Ukraine’s southern military command said in statement.

Pro-Russian officials said the strike killed civilians.

The area is of strategic importance because of its Black Sea access, once thriving agricultural industry and location just north of Russian-annexed Crimea.

Unverified videos posted on social media showed an immense fireball erupting into the night sky. Images released by Russian state media showed a wasteland covered in rubble and the remains of buildings.

An official from the Russian-backed local administration said that Ukraine had used the HIMARS missiles and that they had destroyed warehouses containing saltpetre, a chemical compound which can be used to make fertilizer or gunpowder.