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Russian forces launched fresh attacks on several Ukrainian regions early on September 8, killing at least one person, local authorities said, as Kyiv claimed “partial success” near Bakhmut.
A Russian missile attack killed at least one resident and wounded nine others in the central Ukrainian city of Kryviy Rih, regional Governor Oleh Lysak said.
Lysak wrote on Telegram that the attack hit an administrative building, setting it on fire. “The fire covered 200 square meters,” he said.
Photos he shared showed a building with some of its facade completely destroyed while a huge blaze raced through it. Rescue workers can be seen in front of the building, trying to extinquish the fire.
Russian forces also launched rocket attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya and Sumy regions earlier in the day.
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“In the morning, the enemy fired several rockets, targeting civilian infrastructure in the capital of the [Zaporizhzhya] region. All emergency services are now on the site,” Yuriy Malashko, the head of the regional military administration, wrote on Telegram.
Malashko said at least one local resident was wounded in the attack on the city of Zaporizhzhya.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from Sumy, where shelling destroyed a private house, according to the provincial military administration.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces reported early on September 8 that its forces repelled Russian attacks on several towns and villages in the country’s east and south, including the Donetsk settlements of Lyman, Bakhmut, and Shakhtarsk.
The military claimed “partial success” by Ukrainian forces in the south of Bakhmut, where troops “pushed the enemy out and reinforced their own positions.”
The General Staff also said Ukrainian troops were making gradual progress in their southward advance toward the Sea of Azov.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, claimed that its troops had repelled nine attempted Ukrainian advances south of Bakhmut.
Battlefield reports cannot be independently verified. The reports come as Ukrainian forces focus on retaking Bakhmut, which was seized by Russian troops in May after months of intense fighting, reducing the city to ruins.
Open-source researchers, meanwhile, said the missile that struck a market in the eastern town of Kostyantynivka on September 6 may have been an errant Ukrainian missile — “a tragic accident” — rather than a Russian strike as initially reported.
Ruslan Leviev, who heads a respected Russian group called the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), said he reached his conclusions based on analysis of video footage of the attack. Leviev made the claim in a report aired on the YouTube channel of Russian journalist Maikl Naki.
Last month, Leviev and Naki, who are not currently in Russia, were both sentenced in absentia to 11 years each in a penal colony by a Moscow court for distributing “fake” news about Russia’s war in Ukraine. The same month, CIT was declared “undesirable” by Russian authorities.
Ukrainian officials had not commented publicly on Leviev’s claims as of September 8.
Ukraine, which launched its counteroffensive in June, has rejected what critics in the Western media described as the campaign’s slow pace and questionable tactics.
WATCH: At least 17 people were killed and many others were wounded on September 6 when a Russian missile struck a busy market in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostyantynivka. RFE/RL correspondent Serhiy Horbatenko spoke to eyewitnesses at the scene of the attack.
In a nightly video address on September 7, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked Ukrainian soldiers for what he described as “very, very effective results in destroying the occupiers.”
“And results are precisely what Ukraine needs now from everyone,” the Ukrainian president said.
Meanwhile, Russia’s FSB security service said on September 8 that it had detained a man for allegedly plotting a rail bombing in Crimea.
The FSB said the suspect — a Russian citizen in his mid-40s — had been “collecting information on the deployment of Russian defense ministry facilities and units” and was preparing a railway bombing.
With reporting by Reuters and AFP
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