Three killed in Russian strike as Ukraine reports gains on front line

THREE people died in a Russian blitz on Ukraine as Kyiv claimed its troops had turned the tide on a key part of the Donbas frontline.

Emergency workers in Zaporizhzhia said the victims of Russia’s indiscriminate bombardment included two women aged 40 and 79 and a man aged 77.

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It came as Ukraine’s top general Oleksandr Syrskyi claimed Ukraine had recaptured 60 square miles and destroyed scores of Russian vehicles in a counter offensive near Pokrovsk.

Gen Syrskyi said his troops continued to advance over the weekend after President Zelensky announced the counter attack on Friday.

The military chief said his troops had destroyed 12 Russian tanks and 38 armoured vehicles.

He added: “In the past 24 hours alone the enemy have lost 65 servicemen, 43 of them killed in action, along with 11 pieces of equipment.”

The wrecked Russian weapons included four artillery systems, six drones and a quad bike which Russian troops used for assaults.

During the course of the counter offensive he claimed Russia had lost almost 2,700 soldiers with half of them killed and over 100 captured.

Last month, Ukrainian forces claimed to have killed three Russian perpetrators of the Bucha massacre in a slew of revenge bombings.

It came as Kyiv marked its Independence Day by unleashing a wave of drone strikes crippling key energy infrastructure in Russia.

Ukraine’s military intelligence unit GUR said three Russian soldiers dubbed “Butchers of Bucha” were wiped out in surgical bombings in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region.

They were targeted in the Luhansk region while operating as a mobile air defence group to cover a Russian military-repair base.

Bucha is a town close to Kyiv where Russian troops were accused of perpetrating appalling war crimes as they sought to storm Kyiv in 2022.

Hundreds of Ukrainian people were subjected to executions, torture, mutilation, and sexual violence including rape used by as weapon of war.

After the Russian retreat, mass graves were found where dozens of bodies were hastily buried by Putin’s occupying force.

There were numerous accounts of indiscriminate killings of civilians, including those seeking to flee the violence.

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