Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missiles hit civilian buildings in a central Ukrainian city overnight, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than two dozen in a warehouse and an apartment building, regional officials said Tuesday.

The devastation in Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, come as Ukrainian forces are in the early stages of a counteroffensive, more than 15 months after Russia invaded.

KYIV, June 12 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Monday its troops had recaptured a fourth village in a cluster of settlements in the southeast, a day after reporting the first small gains of a counteroffensive against Russian forces.

Soldiers held up the Ukrainian flag in Storozheve in the Donetsk region in unverified video footage posted online and the defence minister thanked the 35th Separate Brigade of Marines for regaining control of the village.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s military on Sunday reported recapturing a southeastern village as Russian forces claimed to repel multiple attacks in the area, while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s top adviser said six people were injured after Moscow’s troops opened fire at a boat evacuating people from Russian-occupied areas to Ukrainian-held territory along a flooded front line far to the south.

The battlefield showdown in the southeast and chaotic scenes from inundated southern Ukraine marked the latest upheaval and bloodshed in Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in its 16th month.

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam was a fast-moving disaster that is swiftly evolving into a long-term environmental catastrophe affecting drinking water, food supplies and ecosystems reaching into the Black Sea.

The short-term dangers can be seen from outer space — tens of thousands of parcels of land flooded, and more to come. Experts say the long-term consequences will be generational.

KYIV, June 10 (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Ukrainian counter-offensive operations were under way, but declined to divulge details, telling reporters to pass on to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine's generals are optimistic.

The Ukrainian leader, in his trademark khaki fatigues, shrugged at a press conference in Kyiv when asked about comments by Putin, who said on Friday that Kyiv had begun its counter-offensive but failed to make progress.

KYIV, June 10 (Reuters) - Counterattacking Ukrainian forces have advanced up to 1,400 metres at a number of sections of the front line near the eastern city of Bakhmut in the past day, a military spokesman said on Saturday.

The advance is the latest in a series of similar gains reported this week by Kyiv near Bakhmut, which Russia said it had fully captured last month after the bloodiest and longest battle since it began its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that counteroffensive and defensive actions are underway against Russian forces, asserting that his top commanders are in a “positive” mindset as their troops engaged in intense fighting along the front line.

The Ukrainian leader, at a Kyiv news conference alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, responded to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment a day earlier that Ukraine’s counteroffensive had started — and Ukrainian forces were taking “significant losses.”

KYIV, June 9 (Reuters) - Moscow and Kyiv both reported heavy fighting in Ukraine on Friday, with bloggers describing the first sightings of German and U.S. armour, signalling that Ukraine's long-anticipated counterattack was under way.

With virtually no independent reporting from the front lines and Kyiv saying little, it was impossible to assess whether Ukraine was penetrating Russian defences in its bid to drive out occupying forces.

KYIV, June 9 (Reuters) - Evidence was growing on Friday that there was an explosion at the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine around the time it collapsed, according to Ukrainian and U.S. intelligence reports and seismic data from Norway.

Ukraine's security service said it had intercepted a telephone call proving a Russian "sabotage group" blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station and dam early on Tuesday in the Kherson region.

Norway's research foundation Norsar said that data collected from regional seismic stations showed clear signals of an explosion.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — For days, the Ukrainian teenager has waited in the attic, just down the street from the cemetery of her flooded town, marking time with her 83-year-old grandfather and two other elderly people and hoping for help to escape the deluge of a catastrophic dam collapse.