Ukraine claims long-range rocket strike

Ukraine said on Tuesday it had carried out a long-range rocket strike against Russian forces and military equipment in southern Ukraine, territory it says it is planning to retake in a counter-offensive using hundreds of thousands of troops.

The strike hit an ammunition dump in the town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region and killed 52 Russians, Ukraine's military said. It came after Washington supplied Ukraine with advanced HIMARS mobile artillery systems which Kyiv says its forces are using with ever greater efficiency.

A Russian-installed official in Kherson gave a different version of events. He said at least seven people had been killed and that civilians and civilian infrastructure had been hit.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.

The area Ukraine struck is one that Russia seized after launching on February 24 what Moscow called "a special military operation" in its fellow ex-Soviet neighbour and is of strategic importance with Black Sea access, a once thriving agricultural industry and a location just north of Russian-annexed Crimea.

Ukrainian government officials have spoken of efforts to marshal up to one million troops and of their aim to recapture southern parts of the country now under Russian control.

"Based on the results of our rocket and artillery units, the enemy lost 5️2 (people), an Msta-B howitzer, a mortar, and seven armoured and other vehicles, as well as an ammunition depot in Nova Kakhovka," Ukraine's southern military command said in statement.

Unverified videos posted on social media showed smoke and sparks, followed by an immense fireball erupting into the night sky. Images released by Russian state media showed a wasteland covered in rubble and the remains of buildings.

An official from the Russian-installed local administration said that Ukraine had used HIMARS missiles and that they had destroyed warehouses containing saltpetre, a chemical compound which can be used to make fertilizer or gunpowder. A large explosion resulted.

The Ukrainian Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the kind of weapon used.

Vladimir Leontyev, head of the Russia-installed Kakhovka District military-civilian administration, was cited by Russia's TASS news agency as saying that at least seven people had been killed in the attack and around 60 wounded.

"There are still many people under the rubble. The injured are being taken to the hospital, but many people are blocked in their apartments and houses," Leontyev was quoted by TASS as saying. He was also cited as saying that warehouses, shops, a pharmacy, gas stations and a church had been hit.