Russian shelling kills seven in Ukraine’s Kherson

Russian forces have shelled the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, killing seven civilians including a baby, Ukrainian authorities say.

A couple, their 23-day-old child and another man were killed in the village of Shyroka Balka, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. The couple’s 12-year-old son was critically wounded and died in hospital, he added.

Two people were killed and one wounded in the neighbouring village of Stanislav, which Klymenko said was struck 12 times with artillery.

“The terrorists will never willingly stop killing civilians,” Klymenko wrote in a Telegram post along with two photos of damaged houses. “The terrorists must be stopped. With force. They don’t understand anything else.”

Three people were wounded when Russian forces shelled Kherson city in a separate attack on Sunday, said Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration.

Ukraine’s military reclaimed the western part of the Kherson region from Russian occupation last November but Russian troops have continued regularly shelling the area from across the Dnipro River.

Meanwhile a Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo ship in the southwestern Black Sea as it made its way northwards, the first time Russia has fired on merchant shipping beyond Ukraine since exiting a landmark UN-brokered grain deal last month.

Russia in July halted participation in the Black Sea grain deal that allowed Ukraine to export agricultural produce via the Black Sea and Moscow cautioned that it deemed all ships heading to Ukrainian waters to be potentially carrying weapons.

Russia said in a statement that its Vasily Bykov patrol ship had fired automatic weapons on the Palau-flagged Sukru Okan vessel after the ship’s captain failed to respond to a request to halt for an inspection.

Russia said the vessel was making its way towards the Ukrainian port of Izmail. Refinitiv shipping data showed the ship was currently near the coast of Bulgaria and heading towards the Romanian port of Sulina.

“To forcibly stop the vessel, warning fire was opened from automatic weapons,” the Russian defence ministry said.

Separately Russian air defences shot down at least four Ukrainian drones over western regions of Russia on Sunday, the defence ministry said.

Three drones were shot down over Belgorod region and another over the Kursk region, the ministry said.

There were no casualties or damage caused by the incidents, the ministry said.

Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.