Russian attacks overnight and on Wednesday killed at least eight civilians in Ukraine, as senior Ukrainian military officials said their forces had made some progress in counteroffensive operations in the southern theater of operations, Reuters reported.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message that the number of dead has increased to five from four during a rocket attack on a residential building in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia early in the morning.

Officials reported that a 31-year-old woman was killed during an attack on the village of Obukhivka in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, and a man and a woman were killed in the southern Kherson region at night.

“The evil state continues to use terror and wage war against the civilian population. Russian terror must be defeated,” Zelenskyy wrote in the Telegram messenger.

According to him, in the Zaporozhye residential building, one of the entrances on the third to fifth floors was seriously damaged. The photo posted by Zelensky on Telegram shows a house with a gaping hole in the middle, a destroyed entrance and broken windows.

In Obukhivka, near the city of Dnipro, according to residents, a strong explosion blew out windows and knocked people to the ground. According to officials, about 20 houses were damaged.

“A bloodied woman ran out of one of the houses screaming and crying. I think her daughter is dead,” 32-year-old Viktor, a construction worker, told the Reuters TV channel. “I went into the house and saw a dead girl.”

Ukrainian troops advance to the south

Commander of Ukraine’s operations in the south, General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, said that Ukrainian troops are continuing their planned advance towards the Sea of ​​Azov.

The troops of the Tavrian, or Southern, group of forces “continue the offensive. They had partial success south of Robotîne,” Tarnavskyi wrote in Telegram.

Robotin is one of a group of southern villages that Ukraine wants to secure as part of an offensive to break the land bridge connecting Russian positions in the south and east.

Oleksandr Stupun, spokesman for troops in the south, also reported progress near Robotine.

Stupun told national television that shelling had subsided around the town of Avdiyivka, which was the target of violent Russian attacks west of the Russian-held city of Donetsk last week. But the troops in the sector were preparing for different scenarios.

Ukrainian troops are also trying to regain land in the eastern regions

In its evening report, the General Staff reported that its forces repelled attacks in several areas along the 1,000-kilometer front line – including 15 in the area of ​​the city of Marinka, Donetsk region, and 10 further north near Kupyansk.

The Ministry of Defense of Russia gave few details about the actions of its troops, but reported the destruction of a warehouse of Ukrainian aircraft in the center of the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Reuters could not verify accounts from either side.