Russian Shelling Kills 16 in Kherson Region, Says Ukraine

This photograph taken on May 3, 2023, shows a damaged train station building following a Russian strike in the southern Ukrainian town of Kherson, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
This photograph taken on May 3, 2023, shows a damaged train station building following a Russian strike in the southern Ukrainian town of Kherson, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
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Russian Shelling Kills 16 in Kherson Region, Says Ukraine

This photograph taken on May 3, 2023, shows a damaged train station building following a Russian strike in the southern Ukrainian town of Kherson, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
This photograph taken on May 3, 2023, shows a damaged train station building following a Russian strike in the southern Ukrainian town of Kherson, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)

Sixteen civilians were killed on Wednesday in heavy Russian shelling of Ukraine's Kherson region that hit a hypermarket, a railway station and residential buildings, Ukrainian officials said.

Twelve of the victims were in the city of Kherson, the southern region's capital, where a hypermarket came under fire as people were doing their morning shopping and explosions tore through a railway station.

Four more were killed in villages outside the main city in attacks from areas of the Kherson region still occupied by Russia. They included three engineers trying to repair damage inflicted on the power grid in earlier Russian bombardments.

Pools of blood and piles of debris lay on the ground outside the Kherson hypermarket, whose entrance had been heavily damaged and cordoned off, Reuters correspondents on the scene said.

The interior ministry said the victims were all either customers or workers at the hypermarket.

"When the enemy can achieve nothing on the battlefield, it strikes at peaceful cities," Ukrainian military spokesperson Serhii Cherevatyi said.

Many windows were smashed at the railway station, and at least two survivors were seen being carried out on stretchers. Three women who had been eating at the time of the attack said they took cover under a table.

The prosecutor's office said 22 people had also been wounded in Kherson city in "chaotic shelling and strikes on civilian infrastructure facilities."

"We cannot negotiate with Russian murderers. They must be brought to justice. Or destroyed", Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a statement.

Russia did not comment on the attacks in Kherson, one of four Ukrainian regions it said it annexed last September.

Moscow has stepped up air strikes on Ukraine in the past few days as Kyiv prepares for a counteroffensive in which it is expected to try to retake occupied territory in Kherson region.

Ukrainian troops recaptured Kherson city last November after nearly eight months of occupation, but Russian troops retreated only as far as the opposite side of the Dnipro River, from where they now shell the city.

Regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin on Wednesday announced a curfew in Kherson city to last from Friday evening until Monday morning for "law enforcement" reasons. He gave no other explanation.



Russia Says Last Ukrainian Troops Expelled from Kursk Region, Kyiv Denies Assertion

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)
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Russia Says Last Ukrainian Troops Expelled from Kursk Region, Kyiv Denies Assertion

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed on Saturday what he said was the complete failure of an offensive by Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region after Moscow said they had been expelled from the last village they had been holding.

Russia also confirmed for the first time that North Korean soldiers have been fighting alongside Russian troops in Kursk, with the chief of the military General Staff praising their "heroism" in helping to drive out the Ukrainians.

However, Kyiv denied that its forces had been expelled from Kursk and said they were also still operating in Belgorod, another Russian region bordering Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces seized a swathe of territory in Kursk region last August in a surprise incursion that embarrassed Putin. Russian forces, later reinforced by North Korean troops, have been trying ever since to drive them out.

Putin, speaking amid intensified diplomatic efforts by the Trump administration to end the Ukraine conflict, said the expulsion of Ukrainian forces from Russian soil opened the way for further Russian successes inside Ukraine.

"The Kyiv regime's adventure has completely failed," Putin said in video footage released by the Kremlin that showed him receiving a report from the head of Russia's general staff, Valery Gerasimov.

"The full defeat of the enemy in the Kursk border region creates conditions for further successful actions by our forces on other important parts of the front," Putin added.

Gerasimov told Putin that the last occupied settlement in the Kursk region, the village of Gornal, had been "liberated from Ukrainian units" on Saturday.

"Thus, the defeat of the armed formations of the Ukrainian armed forces that had invaded the Kursk region has been completed," Gerasimov said.

The Ukrainian military, in a statement later posted on social media platform Telegram, said its forces were continuing their operations in some districts of Kursk region.

Ukraine also denied Gerasimov's assertion that all Ukrainian "sabotage groups" had been "liquidated" in Belgorod region, where Kyiv's forces launched an incursion last month.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield assertions of either side.

Russia's Defense Ministry said the armed forces were now helping authorities in the Kursk region to restore "peaceful life" and to remove mines planted there.

NORTH KOREANS

Gerasimov praised the North Korean officers and soldiers' contribution in Kursk, saying they had shown "high professionalism, fortitude, courage and heroism", fulfilling combat tasks "shoulder to shoulder" with Russian servicemen.

North Korea sent an estimated total of 14,000 troops, including 3,000 reinforcements to replace its losses, Ukrainian officials said. Lacking armored vehicles and drone warfare experience, they took heavy casualties but adapted quickly.

Russia had previously neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Korean troops in Kursk.

Russia's military cooperation with North Korea has grown rapidly since Moscow became internationally isolated after invading Ukraine in February 2022.

Kyiv says North Korea has supplied Russia with vast amounts of artillery shells as well as rocket systems, thousands of troops and ballistic missiles, which Moscow began using for strikes against Ukraine at the end of 2023.

Russia and North Korea have denied weapons transfers, which would violate UN embargoes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had hoped his forces' seizure of Russian territory would give him a bargaining chip in any future talks to end the war in his country.

Zelenskiy held what the White House described as a "very productive" meeting with US President Donald Trump on Saturday in Rome, where both leaders were attending the funeral of Pope Francis.

Trump is pressuring Zelenskiy to agree to give up some Ukrainian territory to help end the three-year war that has caused large-scale casualties and devastation in cities, towns and villages across Ukraine.