KYIV (Reuters) -Russian attacks on eastern Ukraine killed at least six people and wounded 10 on Thursday, regional authorities said.
A thermobaric ammunition attack on the town of Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region wounded 10 people, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on the Telegram messaging app. A woman who was admitted to hospital in a serious condition after the attack later died, he said.
“The enemy struck near a shop and the town market,” Syniehubov said in an initial statement.
He later added that a two-storey retail building had been damaged, along with a dozen kiosks and windows of nearby homes.
Russia occupied Kupiansk in the early days of its 2022 invasion but was pushed out by a lightning Ukrainian counter-offensive in September that year.
In recent months, Moscow’s forces have been advancing slowly back towards the town and are now less than 4 km (2.5 miles) from its northern outskirts, according to open-source maps.
Russian shelling later in the day killed three people around the strategic hub of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region, governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.
Filashkin said later on Facebook that a Russian strike on a branch of the Nova Poshta delivery service killed two people in Oleksiyevo-Druzhkiva, near the frontline towns of Chasiv Yar and Kostyantynivka.
Russian troops have been stepping up their advance towards Pokrovsk in recent months, moving as close as 8 km from its outskirts.
Russian media and war bloggers reported on Thursday that Russian forces had advanced into the coal mining town of Selydove, about 20 km (12 miles) southeast of Pokrovsk.
Ukraine’s General Staff said the most intense Russian assaults along the front line were currently taking place on the Pokrovsk front, including near Selydove.
The General Staff did not say whether the Russians had entered the town.
(Reporting by Max Hunder and Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Gareth Jones and Daniel Wallis)
