Extract from ABC News
Russia has reported heavy fighting along the front in southern and eastern Ukraine, while Kyiv maintained a strict silence about its long-anticipated counterattack.
Key points:
- Kyiv says it obtained evidence that a Russian "sabotage group" blew up the Kakhovka hydro-electric station and dam
- Russia says Ukraine shelled people affected by floods, killing a pregnant woman and others
- Russia's defence ministry reported intense battles in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk region
"We can state for sure that this offensive has begun," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Sochi.
"All counteroffensive attempts made so far have failed. But the offensive potential of the troops of the Kyiv regime is still preserved," he added.
"The armed forces of Ukraine continued attempts to conduct offensive operations in the southern Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia directions," the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said Ukrainian forces had attacked Russian lines four times with two battalions supported with tanks just south of Velyka Novosilka in Donetsk, but were pushed back.
Russian forces had also repelled two attacks just south of the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region, the ministry said.
It added that Ukraine had lost around 1,200 men, around 40 tanks and several aircraft over the past 24 hours.
Russia did not give its own casualty figures.
With virtually no independent reporting from the front lines, it was impossible to assess the degree to which Ukraine's operation was under way or whether it was having success in penetrating Russian defences to drive out occupying forces.
Ukraine's counteroffensive was ultimately expected to involve thousands of Ukrainian troops trained and equipped by the West.
Russia, which has had months to prepare its defensive lines, said it had withstood attacks since the start of the week.
Kyiv has so far said its main effort has yet to begin.
Ukraine generally forbids independent accredited journalists from reporting on its side of the front lines during offensive operations.
The initial days of the counteroffensive have been overshadowed this week by a humanitarian disaster after the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam holding back the waters of the Dnipro River that bisects Ukraine.
In its latest report from the battlefield, the Russian army claimed to have destroyed more than 21 armoured vehicles in the past 24 hours.
Such claims were unverifiable.
Bakhmut gains claimed by Kyiv
In its few comments, Ukraine has reported gains of territory in the east around the city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces captured last month after nearly a year of the deadliest ground combat in Europe since World War II.
But Kyiv has said virtually nothing about the southern front, widely assumed to be the focus of its main assault as it tries to push towards the coast and cut Russia's access to Crimea.
In his nightly video address, delivered on a train after a visit to the flood zone in the south, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Ukrainian troops and repeated earlier claims of success in Bakhmut, but gave no further account.
"We see every detail. But it's not time to talk about it today," he said.
Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Friday the situation on the frontline was tense and heavy fighting was concentrated in the Donetsk region in the east.
"The situation is tense on all areas of the front," Ms Maliar said.
"The enemy continues to focus its main efforts on the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivsky and Mariinka directions, heavy fighting continues."
She said the Ukrainian troops were repelling the Russian attacks.
On the southern front she said only that battles were continuing for the settlement of Velyka Novosilka and that Russian troops were mounting "active defence" at Orikhiv.
Reuters was unable to verify the situation on the battlefield.
Ukraine has been attacking targets deep in Russian-held territory for weeks in preparation for its assault.
Moscow has been striking Ukrainian cities with cruise missiles and drones.
In the latest air strikes, Ukraine said it had shot down four of six missiles overnight.
The interior ministry said one person had been killed, three were wounded, and four buildings were destroyed from falling debris.
It posted images on Telegram of firefighters attending to the smouldering wreckage of what appeared to be residential homes.
The air force also said two cruise missiles had struck a civilian object in the central Ukrainian region of Cherkasy earlier on Thursday evening.
Regional governor Ihor Taburets said at least eight people were wounded.
Evidence grows of explosion at Kakhovka Dam
Evidence was growing on Friday that there was an explosion at the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine around the time it collapsed, according to Ukrainian and US intelligence reports and seismic data from Norway.
Norway's research foundation Norsar said that data collected from regional seismic stations showed clear signals of an explosion.
And US spy satellites detected an explosion at the dam, a US official was quoted as saying by the New York Times.
Ukraine's domestic security service said it had intercepted a telephone call proving a Russian "sabotage group" blew up the Kakhovka hydro-electric station and dam in southern Ukraine.
The destruction of the facility on Tuesday unleashed mass flooding, forcing thousands of residents to flee and wreaking environmental havoc.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) posted a one-and-a-half-minute audio clip on its Telegram channel of the alleged conversation, which featured two men who appeared to be discussing the fallout from the disaster in Russian.
Reuters could not independently verifying the recording.
Russia, which has accused Kyiv of destroying the dam, did not immediately comment on its content.
"They [the Ukrainians] didn't strike it. That was our sabotage group," said one of the men on the recording, described by the SBU as a Russian soldier.
"They wanted to, like, scare [people] with that dam.
"It didn't go according to plan, and [they did] more than what they planned for."
The man also said "thousands" of animals had been killed at a "safari park" downstream as a result.
The other man on the line expressed surprise at the soldier's assertion that Russian forces had destroyed the hydro-electric plant and dam.
The SBU offered no further details of the conversation or its participants. It said it had opened a criminal investigation into war crimes and "ecocide".
"The interception by the SBU confirms that the Kakhovskaya HPP (Hydroelectric Power Plant) was blown up by a sabotage group of the occupiers," the SBU said in a statement.
"The invaders wanted to blackmail Ukraine by blowing up the dam and staged a man-made disaster in the south of our country."
Hundreds of Ukrainians were rescued from rooftops in the flooded areas on Thursday. The governor of the southern region of Kherson said some 600 square kilometres of the region were under water.
"By blowing up the Kakhovskaya HPP dam, the Russian Federation definitively proved that it is a threat to the entire civilised world," SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk was quoted as saying in the statement.
"Our task is to bring to justice not only the leaders of Russian President Vladimir) Putin's regime, but also the ordinary perpetrators of crimes," he said.
Flood rescue continues
Ukraine evacuated more people on Friday from southern areas where officials said at least five people had been killed in flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said four people had died and 13 people were missing in the Kherson region, and that one person had died in the Mykolayiv region.
A Russian-appointed official said eight people had died in Russian-held territory and more than 5,800 had been evacuated from their homes.
Mr Zelenskyy said the authorities were working round the clock to save people.
"The evacuation continues. Wherever we can get people out of the flood zone, we are doing it," Mr Zelenskyy said.
Kherson's military administration said 2,528 people, including 140 children had been evacuated from flooded areas.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told a government meeting that preliminary estimates put environmental damage at 55 billion hryvnias ($2.23 billion).
Kremlin says Ukraine killed dam flood victims
The Kremlin has accused Ukrainian forces of killing civilian victims of flooding, including one pregnant woman, in repeated shelling attacks.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the purported attacks "barbaric".
Reuters could not independently verify Mr Peskov's assertions and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine, which has accused Russian forces of shelling civilians located on flooded territory which it controls.
Mr Peskov said Russian rescue workers were doing their best to help people in flooded areas on the east bank of the Dnipro River, which is under Russian control, but were being constantly shelled by Ukrainian forces.
"All the work is taking place under the shelling of the Ukrainian armed forces. This shelling does not stop. This is more than barbaric shelling," Mr Peskov told reporters.
"As a result of this shelling there are dead among the flood victims, there was even a pregnant woman."
Russian cities report drone attack
A drone struck an apartment building in the southern Russian city of Voronezh on Friday, in what investigators called a "terrorist act" on behalf of Ukraine, prompting the regional governor to order a state of emergency.
Drones also fell on an office building in Belgorod and near an oil depot in Kursk, officials in those cities said.
Though they caused no serious damage, the attacks underlined the increasing frequency of such attacks in areas of Russia close to the border with Ukraine.
Russia's state Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal case in connection with the incident in Voronezh, 180 kilometres from the border, against "persons acting in the interests of the military-political leadership of Ukraine".
There was no official reaction from Ukraine, which does not comment on alleged military operations inside Russian territory.
"There was a violent explosion. I screamed. And [the plumber] who was fixing my drain, he saw it; he shouted that it was a drone," a woman who witnessed the Voronezh incident said.
Investigators said there was structural damage to the apartment block, whose facade was partly smashed in and scorched.
Three people were slightly hurt by broken glass but did not need hospital treatment, regional governor Alexander Gusev said.
In Belgorod, some 35 kilometres from the Ukraine border, the boom of anti-air defences shooting down incoming targets has become a daily occurrence, and people interviewed on the street by Reuters said they were used to it.
Olga Maskayeva, 71, who lives with her 99-year-old father, said: "Where are we supposed to go? If it happens, it happens."
Reuters/ABC
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