An apartment building damaged by a Russian cruise missile, Kryvyi Rih, south-central Ukraine, June 13, 2023

Monday’s Coverage: Ukrainians Liberate 5 Villages in Counter-Offensive

Map: Institute for Study of War

UPDATE 1146 GMT:

Russian shelling of the southern Kherson region has killed a 72-year-old priest in the settlement of Bilozerka.

Ukraine Presidential Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said artillery fire struck the courtyard of a church, injuring a 76-year-old woman.

The attack damaged four residential buildings, the post office, administrative buildings, the central square, and critical infrastructure.

UPDATE 1110 GMT:

The toll from this morning’s Russian missile strike on an apartment building in Kryvyi Rih has risen to 11 people killed and 28 wounded.

One person is still buried under rubble.

UPDATE 1043 GMT:

Ukraine Deputy Defense minister Hanna Maliar says the counter-offensive has made small advances in the Donetsk region in the east of the country.

During the past day, our troops advanced 250m in the direction of Bakhmut in the area of ​​the Berkhiv reservoir. In the Toretsk direction –– 200m. In the Berdiansk direction, between 0.5 km to 1 km — the area of ​​the territory taken under control was up to 3 sq km.

She explained the challenge in the east, where gains have been more limited than in the south:

The enemy is doing everything to keep the positions captured by him. Actively uses assault and army aviation, conducts intense artillery fire. During the offensive, our troops encounter continuous minefields, which are combined with anti-tank ditches. All this is combined with constant counter-attacks by enemy units on armored vehicles and the massive use of anti-tank guided missile and kamikaze drones.

UPDATE 1033 GMT:

The Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south of the country has killed a decorated Russian general.

Russian military observers confirmed on Monday that the Chief of Staff of the 35th Combined Arms Army, Maj. Gen. Sergei Goryachev — “one of the brightest and most effective military leaders” — died in a missile strike.

Reports said the attack was on the Russian occupation’s administrative center in Henychesk, far behind the frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Goryachev previously led Russian troops in the occupation of Transnistria in Moldova, west of Ukraine.

More than a dozen Russian generals have been killed in Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

UPDATE 1024 GMT:

Vladimir Putin said on Monday, hours before the latest Russian attacks adding to the toll of thousands of slain civilians in Moscow’s invasion:

Why, frankly, is the enemy hitting residential areas? No logic. For what, why, what’s the point? And obviously humanitarian targets – it’s amazing. And there is no military sense, it’s zero.

The UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, Denise Brown, offers a different perspective on Putin’s actions:

UPDATE 0518 GMT:

A resident films the destruction of Russian missile attacks, including on an apartment building in which at least six people were killed, early Tuesday….

A compilation video from The Guardian:

UPDATE 0441 GMT:

The death toll has risen to 10 in Ukrainian-held areas from flooding of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, caused by last Tuesday’s demolition of the Nova Kakhovka Dam.

Officials said 41 people are still missing.

The drowned bodies of a woman and a 50-year-old man were found on Monday in a district of Kherson city. Three people were killed and 10 wounded on Sunday by Russian shelling of an evacuation boat.

Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said water receded from 200 houses on Monday, but 3,600 houses in 31 settlements are still inundated.

A Russian proxy official said 17 people have died in the occupied left (east) bank of the Dnipro River.

Andrei Alekseyenko, chairman of the Russian-installed administration in the Kherson region, said 12 people perished and five in Oleshky.

UPDATE 0431 GMT:

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says the first days of Ukraine’s counter-offensive but faced “tough” fighting, but “we are moving forward”.

In his nightly video address to the nation, Zelenskiy said, “I thank our guys for every Ukrainian flag that is now returning to its rightful place in villages on the newly de-occupied territory.”

The Ukraine Defense Ministry says seven settlements, almost all in the southwest Donetsk region near the Zaporizhzhia border, have been liberated. About 90 square km (34.7 sq miles) has been regained.

Multiple sources reported a Russian counter-attack in southwest Donetsk, along the Mokri Yaly River, with a battle in the recently-liberated village of Makarivka.

Trying to slow the offensive, the Russian forces blew up a dam on the Mokri Yaly, reported near the village of Klyuchove.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: A Russian missile strike has killed at least six civilians in a 5-story apartment building in Kryvyi Rih in south-central Ukraine.

The Russian cruise missile hit several civilian structures in the city, the hometown of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. A warehouse was destroyed.

The Ukraine military command said 10 of 14 cruise missiles and one of four Iranian-made drones were drones.

Drones hit a warehouse and a utility firm’s building in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine.

Waves of Russian missiles and drones are far diminished since the attacks escalated in early October. Ukraine’s air defenses now intercept almost all of the attacking weapons, and the Russians no longer pose a grave threat to infrastructure such as the energy grid.

However, individual missiles or drones have broken through outside Kyiv to kill scores of people in apartment blocks and other civilian sites, and others have been slain by falling debris.

Ukraeine Presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted on Tuesday: