Russian forces stepped up their battle to seize one of the dwindling number of cities in embattled eastern Ukraine not already under their control while continuing to fire on towns and villages in the country's north and south, Ukrainian officials said Saturday. Russian shelling collapsed balconies and blew out windows in the southern region of Mykolayiv, injuring at least nine civilians, authorities said.
A five-story apartment building and private homes in the town of Voznesensk were badly damaged, the Black Sea region's governor said.
"As of 13.30 p.m. (local time) - nine wounded, including four children. All children in a serious condition. Ages range from 3 to 17 years," Gov. Vitaliy Kim wrote in a Telegram post. He added that a young girl lost an eye as a result of Saturday's attack.
Meanwhile, there was hope of a possible diplomatic breakthrough at the embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata reports. Russia and Ukraine have agreed to allow inspectors from the nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency access to the complex.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he's grateful but wary.
Reflecting the broadening front lines of the nearly six-month war in Ukraine, a Ukrainian airstrike hit targets in the largest Russian-occupied city in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, according to Ukrainian and Kremlin-backed local officials.
The Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol said preliminary reports pointed to "a precise hit" on a Russian military base. The head of the Kremlin-backed administration said the attack damaged residential areas and slightly injured one civilian.
In its daily update, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said intensified combat took place around Bakhmut, a small city whose capture would enable Russia to threaten the two largest remaining Ukrainian-held urban centers in the eastern Donbas region.
Bakhmut has for weeks been a key target of Moscow's eastern offensive as the Russian military tries to complete a monthslong campaign to conquer all of the Donbas, an industrial region that borders Russia where pro-Moscow separatists have self-proclaimed a pair of independent republics.
Ukrainian officials have indicated plans for a counter-offensive to win back occupied areas in the country's south while Russia had most of its focus on the east.
Local authorities reported renewed Russian shelling overnight along a broad front, including of the northern Kharkiv and Sumy regions, which border Russia, as well as of the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region and Mykolayiv.