AUkrainian strike in occupied Kherson on Tuesday morning destroyed a building that was reportedly used as headquarters for the Russian military, according to local media reports.
Photos of BRAIN, formerly an electronics store in Kherson, which had been turned into a Russian military HQ, according to reports, show the aftermath of a strike as Ukraine kick-started a counteroffensive to retake the region that was seized by Russian forces in the early phases of the war.
Open-source intelligence account OSINTtechnical shared photos on Twitter that it said showed the building before the attack, adding that the building is "reportedly a Russian headquarters."
In a separate Twitter post, OSINTtechnical shared what it claimed was the aftermath of the attack on the same building, showing what appears to be the same building in ruins.
Ukraine's counteroffensive to retake the Kherson region from Russian troops intensified this week.
Serhiy Khlan, deputy of the Kherson Regional Council, said in a statement on Facebook Monday that Ukraine successfully breached the "first line of defense of the Russians on the Kherson front."
Khlan said it was "the beginning of the end of the occupation of Kherson region" and "a prepared, well-balanced start of a counteroffensive."
Kherson news outlet Most reported that intense gunfire was heard on the streets of the area's Pivnichnyi and Tavriiskyi neighborhoods.
Ukraine's UNIAN news agency also reported that shots could be heard outside a prison colony in the southern region of Kherson.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-backed Kherson Military-Civilian Administration told the Russian state-run TASS news agency on Tuesday that Russian forces killed Ukrainian spies and saboteurs near Kherson's Tavriiskyi neighborhood.
The news agency reported at least five air defense missiles were fired over the city's airspace on Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky didn't directly address Ukraine's counter-offensive during his nightly address, but warned Russian forces that "if they want to survive, it is time ... to flee."
Earlier, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych described Kyiv's counteroffensive as a "slow operation to grind the enemy," adding that Ukrainian forces were targeting ferries that had been used by Russian forces to supply Moscow-occupied territory on the west bank of the Dnipro river.
"Many would like a large-scale offensive with news about the capture by our military of a settlement in an hour," he wrote. "But we don't fight like that."
Russia's defense ministry has acknowledged a Ukrainian counteroffensive but said that it had "failed miserably."
Newsweek has reached out to Russia's foreign ministry for comment.
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