The Ukrainian military has reported widespread fighting in both the northern and southern theaters of combat over the past 24 hours, with Ukrainian forces going on the offensive in the south and Russian artillery active in Donetsk and Kharkiv.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Russian forces tried to advance in Kharkiv region — some 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the city — but were rebuffed.
However, they continued to shell districts close to Kharkiv city and other parts of the region, according to Ukraine’s military.
Two men were killed in shelling of the town of Zolochiv near the Russian border, according to the regional military administration.
“In the Kharkiv region, seven people died and 34 were injured as a result of shelling by the occupiers,” the administration said.
The General Staff said there had been no change in the front lines north of the city of Sloviansk. “All the actions of the enemy in the direction of these settlements were unsuccessful,” it said.
But Russian shelling of the city from a distance continues, and one person was injured overnight when a residential building was struck, according to local authorities.
The General Staff said Russian forces were also trying to improve their tactical positions further south in the Donetsk region, with missile and rocket attacks in several areas.
The Russian goal is to close in on those parts of the region still held by Ukrainian forces, around 45% of the region, from three directions.
But since the fall of Lysychansk in neighboring Luhansk, the front lines in Donetsk have changed little.
In the south: Meanwhile, in southern Ukraine, Russian forces are largely on the defensive as Ukrainian forces try to make advances into Kherson region.
The General Staff said Tuesday that “the enemy is concentrating its efforts on holding the occupied positions and preventing the offensive of units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine.”
The fighting in Kherson is partly responsible for widespread fires. The regional military administration reported that “at the beginning of July, the emergency workers recorded 75 fires on almost 300,000 hectares.”
The Ukrainian military’s Operational Command South said three Russian ammunition warehouses had been struck in parts of Mykolaiv under Russian control, and Ukrainian helicopters had attacked Russian positions in neighboring Kherson.
Serhii Khlan, an adviser to the head of Kherson civil military administration, said Tuesday that “our armed forces began to attack positions near Pravdyne, Oleksandrivka, and Snigurivka [in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions] with helicopters.”
“We have already launched attacks along almost the entire front line,” Khlan said.
Russian forces are now reinforcing their checkpoints “because the partisan movement is intensifying in the Kherson region…..the fortification with concrete hints that the occupiers are preparing for street battles,” he added.
CNN is unable to verify Khlan’s claims, but there has been an uptick in Ukrainian offensive actions in Kherson and Mykolaiv recently.
