Russian forces shell Ukraine's Kherson region

Even when President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Kyiv energized by his warm welcome to the United States, the bloodshed continued on the ground, a reminder of the heavy toll of a war that has no end in sight.

At least five civilians were killed and 18 injured in Russian attacks Thursday and Friday morning, Kyrylo said Friday Tymoshenko, Deputy Head of the President's Offices a post on the Telegram messaging app. The attacks took place in four regions of southern and eastern Ukraine that Russia has illegally annexed but does not fully control.

Russian forces have bombed the southern Kherson region 61 times over the past 24 years. hours with rocket, artillery and mortar attacks, hitting schools and residential buildings, Yaroslav Yanushevych, the head of the military administration of Kherson province, said on Telegram in a morning message. A later article said shelling near downtown Kherson killed two people, although the timing is unclear.

Last month, troops forces withdrew from the city and since then have fired hundreds of shells at them from their new positions.

Russian shelling hit a district hospital overnight in the city of Volchansk, in the northeast of the Kharkiv region, injuring five people, according to a message on Telegram from the local governor, Oleh Syniehubov. It was unclear whether Russia was specifically targeting the hospital.

In the southeast, saboteurs struck in the Russian-held town of Melitopol, where two people were injured in a car bomb attack, a Russian-backed official told Russian news agency Tass. The city's exiled mayor, Ivan Fedorov, said on Telegram that one of those injured was a local policeman who worked with the Russians.

Ukraine intensified efforts to isolate and degrade Russian forces in Melitopol, which sits at the crossroads of two major highways and a crucial rail line connecting Russia to the Crimean Peninsula and other territories it occupies. p>

Earlier this month, the Kremlin-appointed deputy head of Melitopol survived an assassination attempt, part of a series of attacks against Moscow's hand-picked administrators in occupied Ukraine.