The Ukrainian military has started a long-awaited counter-offensive to retake territory in the south seized by Russian forces since their invasion six months ago, a move reflecting Kyiv's growing confidence as Western military aid flows in.
Southern Command spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk confirmed the offensive in a news briefing and said it included the Kherson region.
Russia rapidly captured swathes of Ukraine's south near the Black Sea coast, including the city of Kherson, in the early phase of the war in stark contrast to its failed attempt to capture the capital Kyiv.
Ukraine has been using sophisticated Western-supplied weapons to hit Russian ammunition dumps and wreak havoc with supply lines.
Ms Humeniuk told a briefing that Ukraine had struck more than 10 such ammunition dumps in the past week, adding they had "unquestionably weakened the enemy".
She declined to give details of the counter-offensive, saying Russian forces in southern Ukraine remained "quite powerful".
The governor of Ukraine's Russian-annexed Crimea Peninsula, Sergei Aksyonov, dismissed her announcement as "another fake of Ukrainian propaganda".
Crimea is adjacent to the Kherson region.
Russia's RIA news agency, quoting local official Vladimir Leontiev, reported that people were being evacuated from workplaces in Nova Kahokva, a town 58 km to the east of Kherson, after Ukrainian forces carried out more than 10 missile strikes there.
Shortly after the announcement, Ukraine's presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote a cryptic message on Telegram proclaiming "our Kherson is ahead."
