KYIV: Ukraine said on Friday that Russian forces were concentrating their firepower on the Pokrovsk front in the eastern Donetsk region, where overnight strikes wounded at least six people.
The Kremlin annexed the industrial territory in late 2022, months after invading, and its forces are making incremental gains there.
“The Pokrovsk front... is the most intense in terms of enemy attacks,” the Ukrainian military said in a briefing.
In the war-battered town of Selydove near the front line in Donetsk, officials said six people were wounded by Russian aerial attacks overnight.
AFP journalists on the scene hours after the attack saw the interior of a supermarket reduced to heaps of metal and glass under a partially gutted roof.
The force of the explosion, which tore open a neighboring building, also blew out the windows of residential buildings across the street.
Oleg, a 57-year-old resident, said he heard a strange noise at around 9.00 p.m. on Thursday evening.
He thought it was several helicopters flying overhead, until he saw the explosion.
Lyudmila, still in shock, assessed the damage in her flat where the windows had been blown out by the blast.
“Everything was blown away,” the 68-year-old told AFP, her face bruised by the blast.
Kyiv and Moscow staged dozens of drone and missile attacks overnight and during the day Friday.
The two sides have stepped up cross-border aerial assaults in recent weeks, Kyiv targeting Russian energy facilities and Moscow launching retaliatory barrages.
The governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said seven people were wounded when shelling caused a section of a five-story block of flats to collapse in the border town of Shebekino, which often comes under attack from the Ukrainian side.
Emergency services said rescuers were still searching through the rubble.
Russia said it had downed 87 Ukrainian drones, 70 of which had targeted the southern Rostov region that houses the headquarters of its military operation against Ukraine.
The defense ministry said 70 drones were downed over Rostov, six each over Kursk and Voronezh, two each over Volgograd and the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, and one over the annexed Crimean peninsula.
Attacks sparked power cuts in several areas of the Rostov region, its governor Vasily Golubev said on social media.
In the Voronezh region, which borders Ukraine, a fuel reservoir was slightly damaged by falling debris, its governor Alexander Gusev said.
Kyiv meanwhile said that Ukrainian air-defense systems had downed 24 out of 31 Russian drones and missiles fired overnight.
During the day, drone attacks killed a 54-year-old man in the southern Kherson region and wounded a 17-year-old girl in the eastern city of Dnipro, regional authorities said.
Three people were wounded in a drone attack in the eastern Sumy region and several homes were damaged in the neighboring Kharkiv region.
Ukraine fighting ‘intense’ battles in Donetsk region
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Ukraine fighting ‘intense’ battles in Donetsk region
- “The Pokrovsk front... is the most intense in terms of enemy attacks,” the Ukrainian military said
- In the war-battered town of Selydove near the front line in Donetsk, officials said six people were wounded by Russian aerial attacks overnight
Nine Nigerian troops killed, several missing in jihadist ambush
- “We lost nine soldiers in an ambush by Daesh-WAP terrorists and many others are still missing,” a military officer said
- The soldiers dispersed in all directions following sustained gunfire from the militants
KANO, Nigeria: At least nine Nigerian soldiers were killed and over a dozen are missing after Daesh-aligned militants ambushed a military patrol in northeast Borno state, military and militia sources told AFP Tuesday.
Fighters from Daesh West Africa Province (Daesh-WAP) on Friday used explosives and guns to attack a column of more than 30 troops on foot patrol outside the town of Damask near the border with Niger, the sources said.
“We lost nine soldiers in an ambush by Daesh-WAP terrorists and many others are still missing,” a military officer said.
The soldiers, who were 25 kilometers (15 miles) from their base, dispersed in all directions following sustained gunfire from the militants, said the officer who asked not to be identified.
“The terrorists detonated an explosive device they had planted on the road in advance, increasing the casualties and confusion among the soldiers,” he said.
Eight soldiers managed to return to base while the rest remain missing, including their commander with the rank of a major, the officer said.
“A man who identified himself as an Daesh-WAP terrorist keeps answering the call to the commander’s mobile phone, suggesting he is in the hands of the terrorists,” he added.
Ya-Mulam Kadai, a spokesman for government-funded anti-militant militia assisting the military in Damask, gave the same casualty toll.
The nine bodies of the slain soldiers were recovered by a military search team deployed at the scene of the attack, he said.
The military did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
The Nigerian military has in recent weeks intensified ground operations against Daesh-WAP, particularly in its Sambisa forest stronghold, with the military making regular claims of killing huge numbers of militant fighters.
Daesh-WAP and rival Boko Haram factions have been attacking military targets, raiding bases, laying ambush and planting explosives against patrols on highways.
Nigeria’s insurgency has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around two million in the northeast since it erupted in 2009, according to the United Nations.
The conflict has spilled into neighboring Niger, Cameroon and Chad, leading the region to launch a military coalition to fight the militant groups.
