In what Ukraine claimed was retaliation for defying the Kremlin, Russian soldiers attacked the northern Chernihiv region and the Kyiv area with missiles on Thursday for the first time in weeks.
In the meantime, Ukrainian authorities declared a counteroffensive to retake the south of the country's occupied Kherson area, which was taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces early in the conflict.
Oleksii Hromov, a senior officer with the Ukrainian General Staff, claimed that Russia attacked the Kyiv region with six missiles fired from the Black Sea, striking a military unit in the hamlet of Liutizh on the outskirts of the capital.
According to him, the attack damaged two buildings and destroyed one, while Ukrainian forces also shot down a missile in the Bucha town.
Five of the fifteen injured in the Russian airstrikes were civilians, according to Oleksiy Kuleba, governor of the Kyiv area.
Kuleba connected the assaults to the Day of Statehood, which was observed for the first time in Ukraine on Thursday and was instituted by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last year.
According to Kuleba, "Russia is mounting its retaliation against the widespread popular resistance that the Ukrainians were able to mobilize exactly because of their statehood with the use of missiles." "Ukraine will continue to defend itself and has already disrupted Russia's intentions."
The Russians also launched missiles at the village of Honcharivska from the territory of Belarus, according to Chernihiv regional governor Vyacheslav Chaus. There had been no recent attacks on the Chernihiv region.
After failing to take either region, Russian troops departed from the Kyiv and Chernihiv districts months ago. After calling on Russian forces to "liberate Russian cities built by the Russian people — Kyiv, Chernihiv, Poltava, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lutsk," Denis Pushilin, the head of pro-Kremlin rebels in the east, intensified his attacks on the day before.
The mayor of Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, said that shelling continued throughout the night. Russian shelling on a power plant in the Kharkiv region, according to the authorities, resulted in the death of a police officer.
Mykolaiv, a city in southern Ukraine, too came under fire, with one person reportedly hurt.
In the meantime, the Ukrainian military continued a counterattack in the Kherson region, taking out of service a crucial Dnieper River bridge on Wednesday.
Oleksiy Arestovich, a presidential adviser for Ukraine, was quoted in Ukrainian media as saying that the operation to liberate Kherson is under way. Kyiv's forces intend to isolate Russian troops and give them the choice to "retreat, if possible, surrender, or be destroyed."
The Russians are concentrating their strongest forces in the area of Kherson, according to Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, who also issued a warning: "A very large-scale movement of their troops has begun."
According to the British military, Ukraine has damaged at least three of the Dnieper bridges that Russia uses to resupply its soldiers with new long-range artillery from the West.
The eastern Donetsk province was the location of all five civilian fatalities and nine civilian injuries, according to the Ukrainian presidential office on Thursday morning.
Donetsk province has been the scene of intense fighting lately. It has been worse recently as Russian forces have reportedly resumed operations after seizing the nearby province of Luhansk.
Two civilians were reportedly killed by a Russian bombing of the village of Toretsk, according to Ukrainian emergency authorities. According to officials, a missile that struck a residential structure there early on Thursday morning destroyed two levels.
"Again, missile horror. We are not going to give up. Regional governor of Donetsk Pavlo Kyrylenko stated on Telegram, "We won't be frightened.
According to military analysts, Russian forces are concentrating their efforts on seizing Bakhmut and Siversk in the Donetsk area.
In order to remind Ukrainians of their nation's past as an independent state, Zelenskyy established the Day of Statehood. The celebration pays homage to Prince Vladimir, who, more than a thousand years ago, converted Kyivan Rus to Christianity and proclaimed Christianity the state religion.
The president stated in a Day of Statehood address that "you may say that for us, every day is a statehood day."
"We fight every day so that everyone on the planet can finally understand: We are a free, independent, sovereign, indivisible and independent state," Zelenskyy said. "We are not a colony or enclave or protectorate, not a province, an eyalet, or a crown land, not a part of foreign empires, not a part of a country, not a federal republic, not an autonomy, not a province.
The Kyivan Rus heritage is also claimed by the Kremlin. Putin built a memorial to Prince Vladimir close to the Kremlin in 2016.
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