July 12, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The Ukrainian military has reported widespread fighting in both the northern and southern theaters of combat over the past 24 hours, with Ukrainian forces going on the offensive in the south and Russian artillery active in Donetsk and Kharkiv.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Russian forces tried to advance in Kharkiv region -- some 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the city -- but were rebuffed.

However, they continued to shell districts close to Kharkiv city and other parts of the region, according to Ukraine's military.

Two men were killed in shelling of the town of Zolochiv near the Russian border, according to the regional military administration.

"In the Kharkiv region, seven people died and 34 were injured as a result of shelling by the occupiers," the administration said.

The General Staff said there had been no change in the front lines north of the city of Sloviansk. "All the actions of the enemy in the direction of these settlements were unsuccessful," it said.

But Russian shelling of the city from a distance continues, and one person was injured overnight when a residential building was struck, according to local authorities.

The General Staff said Russian forces were also trying to improve their tactical positions further south in the Donetsk region, with missile and rocket attacks in several areas. 

The Russian goal is to close in on those parts of the region still held by Ukrainian forces, around 45% of the region, from three directions.

But since the fall of Lysychansk in neighboring Luhansk, the front lines in Donetsk have changed little. 

In the south: Meanwhile, in southern Ukraine, Russian forces are largely on the defensive as Ukrainian forces try to make advances into Kherson region.

The General Staff said Tuesday that "the enemy is concentrating its efforts on holding the occupied positions and preventing the offensive of units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine."

The Ukrainian military's Operational Command South said three Russian ammunition warehouses had been struck in parts of Mykolaiv under Russian control, and Ukrainian helicopters had attacked Russian positions in neighboring Kherson.

Serhii Khlan, an adviser to the head of Kherson civil military administration, said Tuesday that "our armed forces began to attack positions near Pravdyne, Oleksandrivka, and Snigurivka [in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions] with helicopters."

"We have already launched attacks along almost the entire front line," Khlan said.

Russian forces are now reinforcing their checkpoints "because the partisan movement is intensifying in the Kherson region.....the fortification with concrete hints that the occupiers are preparing for street battles," he added.

CNN is unable to verify Khlan's claims, but there has been an uptick in Ukrainian offensive actions in Kherson and Mykolaiv recently.

Russia has blocked the exits from the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol for the second day in a row, according to city mayor Ivan Fedorov.

Russian forces were "so afraid of the counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that they have covered themselves with thousands of civilians as human shields," said Fedorov, who is not in Melitopol.

Fedorov said the Russians had closed the checkpoint at Vasylivka -- the main crossing point for civilian traffic trying to reach other parts of Ukraine.

On Monday, Fedorov said the Russians had blocked off the western part of Melitopol, stranding "tens of thousands of the citizens of the residential neighborhood."

Like parts of neighboring Kherson region, Melitopol has seen strikes by Ukrainian forces far behind the front lines in recent days.

The Russian-appointed head of the regional administration in Melitopol, Yevgeniy Balitskiy, said Tuesday on his Telegram channel that the Ukrainian government had "turned into ISIS: they blow up bridges, carry out attacks on public figures," an apparent reference to the reported assassination attempt against a pro-Russian local official, Andriy Siguta, whose car was blown up.

"This will not change anything," Balitskiy said. "The people of Zaporozhzhia region have already made their choice....The liberated part of Zaporizhzhia region will become a part of [the Russian Federation] through a referendum."

Fedorov has claimed that there were high casualties in a Ukrainian strike on a Russian garrison in Melitopol on Saturday night, saying the occupying forces "do not know where to put the bodies of the killed Russian soldiers."

"Doctors of forensic medical examination do not want to collaborate and do not issue death certificates because they do not want to cooperate with the Russians," Fedorov said.

Last week, Fedorov said there had been more than 30 strikes on a single military base outside the city.

CNN cannot confirm the extent of damage or casualties caused by the Ukrainian strikes against Russian forces in the area. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to Tehran to hold talks with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July 19, according to the Kremlin. 

“Putin, [Raisi] and Erdogan will hold a meeting,” Peskov said, adding that, in addition to the trilateral meeting, there will also be a bilateral meeting between Putin and Erdogan.

The Chief of the Economic Commission of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammadreza Pour-Ebrahimi, told Iranian state news agency IRNA on Tuesday that Putin would visit Tehran next week to discuss expansion of economic ties between Iran and Russia.

Pour-Ebrahimi told IRNA that after the recent trip by Iran’s President to Russia, "a positive atmosphere has been created" regarding Iran-Russia economic cooperation.

Seven people are missing following huge explosions overnight in the Russian-occupied town of Nova Kakhovka, according to authorities there.

The town, in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, was rocked by explosions Monday night — possibly the largest in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine since the invasion began in late February.  At least six people were killed, Russian state news agency TASS reported earlier on Tuesday.

TASS quoted the head of the town's civil-military administration, Vladimir Leontiev, as saying the strike "led to an explosion in warehouses with mineral fertilizers. There are victims, the market, hospital and houses are damaged."

Leontev claimed the attack was "launched from afar on the civilian population. This is no military target. It's warehouses, stores, pharmacies, gas stations."

"Windows flew out within a radius of 2 kilometers (1.2 miles)," Leontev said. Early Tuesday, TASS said fires continued to burn in the warehouses.

Another official in the Russian-backed administration, Ekaterina Gubareva, said Ukraine fired using American High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

Ukraine's counteroffensive: Ukraine has begun targeting Russian command posts and ammunition dumps far behind the front lines in both Kherson and Donbas, using newly supplied Western weaponry that has a much greater range than its previous artillery systems.

The Ukrainian military has given few details about the strike.

"According to the results of firing missions by our missile and artillery units, the enemy lost 52 personnel, a 'Msta-B' howitzer, a mortar, seven units of armored and automotive vehicles, as well as a warehouse with ammunition in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson region," the Operational Command South said on Monday.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the name of the Russian state-run channel. It is Russia-24.

The death toll has risen to more than 30 following a Russian strike on an apartment block in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine over the weekend, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday.

The residential building in the town of Chasiv Yar was hit on Saturday evening as Russia once again ramped up its assault on cities and towns in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to take control over the entire Donbas area.

At least 34 people died and at least nine were injured in the attack, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region military administration, said on his official Telegram channel on Tuesday. One of those who died was a child, he added.

The rescue operation is ongoing and the Emergency Services have cleared about 70% of the rubble, Kyrylenko said. 

Some context: Chasiv Yar and other towns in Donetsk have been under heavy fire in recent days as Russian forces try to grind down Ukrainian resistance in the area and move further west towards Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

At least six people were killed following a series of explosions on Monday in Nova Kakhovka in the Russian-occupied Kherson region of Ukraine, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Tuesday.

TASS, which cited the head of the military-civilian administration of Kakhovka district, Vladimir Leontiev, said the attack was carried out by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

According to Leontiev, six were killed, adding there were “dozens of wounded” with shrapnel wounds and cuts.

He also said many people were still trapped under rubble or in their homes, with those injured being sent to hospital.

Some context: Large explosions rocked Nova Kakhovka on Monday for the the second time in four days. The town is the site of a key hydroelectric dam and a link in the water supply to Crimea. Video posted on social media showed loud explosions and a huge ball of fire lighting up the night sky.

Brazil is planning on buying cheaper Russian diesel, according to President Jair Bolsonaro in a speech to his supporters in Brasilia on Monday.

He added that the first shipments should be arriving in Brazil over the next two months and that the deal would bring prices down, state-run Agencia Brasil reported.

Over the past year, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Brazil, demanding the impeachment of Bolsonaro for what they called his mishandling of the pandemic, but also due to surging inflation and high fuel prices in the country.

Less than a month ago, the CEO of the state-owned oil company Petrobras Jose Mauro Coelho, who took office in April, stepped down, according to state-run news agency, Agencia Brasil. The move came after Bolsonaro’s government announced in May that they would change the company’s president.

Petrobras was “buying [diesel] much more expensively,” Bolsonaro told his supporters on Monday as he announced the deal with Russia.

Shipments of Russian fertilizers have also been arriving in Brazil despite Western sanctions on Moscow, the Brazilian agriculture ministry confirmed to CNN in June.

Brazilians will head to the polls in October to vote in the country’s presidential election, in which Bolsonaro is expected to face a tough race against former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

A series of large explosions rocked the town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region of Ukraine on Monday night. The town, like much of Kherson, is under Russian occupation. 

It's the second major explosion in four days in the town, the site of an important hydroelectric dam and a link in the water supply to Crimea through the North Crimea canal.

Video posted on social media showed loud explosions and a huge ball of fire lighting up the night sky.

Khlan, who is not in Kherson, warned residents of Nova Kakhovka not to venture outdoors. 

"Please take care of yourself and do not come close to the place of the detonation," he said.

The Russian state news agency TASS made no reference to an ammunition dump exploding but late Wednesday reported: "The Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station in the Kherson region, a source said."

But the deputy head of the Russian backed military-civilian administration in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, said Ukrainian missiles did not hit the hydroelectric power station.

TASS later said warehouses holding potassium nitrate had exploded. Potassium nitrate is a highly combustible substance used as an ingredient in fertilizer and was the cause of the Beirut explosion two years ago.

CNN cannot confirm the cause of the explosions or what was destroyed.

"There are victims, the market, hospital and houses were damaged," TASS reported, quoting the Russian-backed civil-military administration in Kherson.

Ukrainian forces have stepped up attacks using missiles and long-range artillery against Russian command posts and munitions sites in the past week.

Newly declassified US intelligence indicates that Iran is expected to supply Russia with "hundreds" of drones — including weapons-capable drones — for use in the war in Ukraine, with Iran preparing to begin training Russian forces on how to operate them as early as late July, according to White House officials.

A spokesperson at the White House National Security Council told CNN that the information Sullivan described to reporters was based on recently declassified intelligence.

Sullivan argued that news of Iran supplying the drones is evidence that Russia's attacks against Ukraine in recent weeks are coming at the "severe" cost of depleting of its own weapons.

News of Iran's supply of drones to Russia came a day before President Joe Biden's first trip to the Middle East since taking office, with stops in Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran's actions in the region and its nuclear program are expected to be a major topic of discussion.

Read more here.