Russian forces launched a missile attack on the 🎉Kyiv a🀅rea for the first time in weeks Thursday and pounded the northern Chernihiv region as well, in what Ukraine said was revenge for standing up to the Kremlin.
Ukrainian officials🃏, meanwhile, announced a counteroffen♌sive to take back the occupied Kherson region in the country's south, territory seized by Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces early in the war.
The Vyshgorod di🧸strict on the outskirts of Kyiv was targeted early in tꦿhe morning, and an “infrastructure object” was hit, regional Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said on Telegram.
There was no immediate ✨word on any casualties. Vyshgorod is 20 ඣkilometers north of the capital's centre.
Kuleba link꧑ed🎃 the strikes to the Day of Statehood, a commemoration that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instituted last year and Ukraine marked for the time on Thursday.
“Russia, with the help of missiles, is 🦩mounting revenge for the widespread popular resistance, which the Ukrainians were able to organise precisely because of their statehood,” Kuleba told Ukrainian television.
“Ukraine ♔has already broken Russia's plans an൲d will continue to defend itself.”
Chernihiv regional Gov. Vyacheslav Chaus reported that the Russians also fired miss🌳iles from the territory of Belarus at the village of Honcharivska.
The Chernihiv region had not been targeꦜted in weeks.
Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions mo𓆏nths ago after failing to capture eith🍷er.
The renewed strikes come a day after t🃏he leader of pro-Kremlin separatists in the east, Denis Pushilin, urged Russian forces to “liberate Russian cities founded by the Russian people — Kyiv, Chernihiv🅺, Poltava, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lutsk.”
Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, also came under a barrage of shelling overnight, according to the mayor. T🍃he southern city of Mykolaiv was fired on as well, with✱ one person reported injured.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military kept up a counterattack in the Kherson region, knocking outꦍ of commission a key bridge over the Dnieper R൲iver on Wednesday.
Ukrainian media quoted Ukrainian presid❀ential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich as saying the operation to liberate Kherson is underway, with Kyiv's forces planning to isolate Russian troops and leave them with three options — "retreat, if possible, surrender or be destroyed."
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Sec🌃urit🍨y and Defense Council, said the Russians are concentrating maximum forces in the direction of Kherson, warning: “A very large-scale movement of their troops has begun.”
The British military said Ukraine has used its new, Western-supplied long-range artillery to damage at least three of the bridg🐽es across the Dnieper that Russia relies on to supply its forces.
Ukraine's presidential office said Thursday morning that Russian shelling of cities and villages over the past 24 hours killed at least five civilians, all of them in the eastern Donetsk pro🎶vince, and wounded nine.
Fighting in recent weeks has focuse🐼d on Donetsk province.
It has intensified in recent days as Russian forces appeared to emerge from a reported “operational p🌟ause” after capturing neighbouring Luhansk province.
A missile st♐ruck a residential building in Toretsk early Thursday morning, destroying two floors.
“Missile terror again. We will not give up. ... We will not be intimidated🌺,” Donetsk regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram.
Military analysts believe Russian for🌄ces are focusing their efforts on capturing the cities of Bakhmut and Siversk in🎉 Donetsk province.
Zelenskyy instituted the Day of Statehood to remind Ukrainians about the country's history as an indepe🐼ndent state.
The comme𒁏moration honors Prince Vladꦕimir, who made Christianity the official religion of the medieval state of Kyivan Rus more than 1,000 years ago.
The Kremlin also lays claim to the heritage of Kyivan Rus. In 2016, Putin erected a monument to Prince Vladimir near the Kremlin.
