Ukraine decries civilian deaths, injuries in new Russian shelling

Debris is scattered along a street after shelling in a residential block in Kherson, Ukraine, in this screengrab taken from a video released on December 3, 2023. Kherson Regional State Administration/Handout via REUTERS

KYIV — Fresh Russian shelling killed at least three people including an elderly man in a village garage and a woman beside a city bus stop, Ukrainian officials said, as President Volodymr Zelenskiy reported “intense battles” at dozens of frontline locations.

“Russian occupiers once again shelled Kherson,” Zelenskiy said, referring to the southern, port city on the west bank of the Dnipro River, abandoned by Russian forces late last year but now regularly shelled from the river’s eastern bank.

He said the most severe of the frontline battles were in the eastern towns of Maryinka, Avdiivka, and Bakhmut but also reported heavy fighting in the Kharkiv region and the south.

“Brutal” shelling rained down on “buildings, streets, our hospitals” in Kherson, he said and offered condolences to families of those killed, noting Kherson region alone had suffered 20 shelling incidents in one day.

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In the east, the prosecutor general’s office said a 69-year-old woman was killed on the spot and a 70-year-old woman suffered gunshot wounds in the town of Kostyantynivka.

A 64-year-old man suffered a penetrating injury from shelling while in his garden in Avdiivka, the site of some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks.

In the south, shelling in the village of Sadove killed a 78-year-old man in a private garage, Kherson city’s military administration said, adding, “He died on the spot from the explosive injury.”

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In Kherson city, an image shared by Ukrainian officials on the Telegram messaging app showed a blurred image of a woman in a mauve coat in fetal position on the ground with her back to the camera, two shopping bags strewn near her head.

Roman Mrochko, head of Kherson city’s military administration, posted a video of a multi-story building with shattered windows, internal damage, and debris on the ground.

The video included brief interviews with women inside the damaged apartments as well as blurred images of the woman who was killed at the bus stop. “There was a very strong explosion,” one woman said, weeping as she surveyed [the] damage to a bedroom. “It roared. I never heard anything like this in my life.”

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Reuters confirmed the location of the video as Kherson City by matching signs and building positions and shapes to file and satellite imagery of the area but was unable to confirm its date.

Kherson regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said the shelling there also lightly or moderately injured three women aged 35, 42, and 52 and two men aged 28 and 46.

Prokudin said Russian shells also damaged the facades of two nearby hospital buildings but added that there were no casualties.