At a time when the conflict between Kyiv and Moscow is about to mark two years since it began, Russia and Ukraine reported that at least six people were killed on Sunday as a result of shelling, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Ukrainian officials, the Russian attacks on Ukraine’s southern Kherson region have killed five people, whereas, the Russian authorities have claimed that one person was killed following Ukrainian shelling on the eastern town of Horlivka, which is under the occupation of Russia.
An 87-year-old man and his 81-year-old wife were killed when their Kherson City apartment block was shelled on Sunday, Al Jazeera reported citing the Ukrainian officials.
“There are no holidays for the enemy. “They do not exist for us as long as the enemy kills our people and remains on our land,” the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak said.
The new assault came as Ukraine prepared to celebrate Christmas on December 25 for the first time, after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved legislation shifting it from the Russian Orthodox Church’s January 7 schedule, Al Jazeera reported.
Since vacating the region’s administrative centre more than a year ago, Russian forces have repeatedly shelled Kherson.
In a Christmas Eve speech, Zelenskyy promised Ukrainians fighting Russia that “step by step, day by day, the darkness is losing.
“Today, this is our common goal, our common dream. And this is precisely what our common prayer is for today. For our freedom. For our victory. For our Ukraine,” Al Jazeera quoted Zelenskyy as saying.
Ukrainian shelling killed one woman and injured six others in Russian-controlled Horlivka, roughly 600 kilometres (400 miles) northeast of Kherson, according to Russian-installed mayor Ivan Prikhodko on the Telegram messaging app, reported Al Jazeera.
He said that the shelling also destroyed a shopping centre and several other buildings there.
