Russian diplomats have dismissed as lies a US allegation that Moscow's military was executing its own soldiers if they refused to carry out battlefield orders in Ukraine.
"Whoever came up with these other-worldly lies could only have been a person with an imagination far into overdrive," the Russian embassy in Washington said, in comments carried by the RIA Novosti news agency.
"And all this simply to justify the failed, much publicised counteroffensive of its (Ukrainian) ward. Let us say with full responsibility that all insinuations about this in comments by the White House spokesperson are a lie."
"We also have information that Russian commanders are threatening to execute entire units if they seek to retreat from Ukrainian artillery fire," he said.
Mr Kirby provided no evidence for his assertions.
Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive, which has regained villages in the south and east, but is moving more slowly than an advance last year through occupied northeastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last night that Russian losses had grown significantly in the past week. These included, he said, at least a brigade worth of troops trying to advance on the eastern town of Avdiivka.
Russian forces heavily shelled the centre of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson yesterday, injuring eight people and destroying or damaging at least 15 buildings, a senior city official said.
Pictures posted on social media showed at least three sites dotted with piles of rubble and the interior of one building strewn with shattered building materials and other debris.
Roman Mrochko, head of the city's military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app that three of the injured were being treated in hospital.
He said two buildings had been destroyed, three suffered heavy damage and 10 less damage.
"In the evening the entire city trembled," Ukraine's Emergency Services said on Telegram. "The enemy targeted the very centre of Kherson."
The posting said emergency workers had rescued two women, in their 70s and 80s, who had been blocked in a building, and brought a fire under control in a rubble-strewn area.
Ukraine's Suspilne public broadcaster said Russian forces had also shelled Beryslav, a town further north on the Dnipro river in Kherson region, wounding one person.
Russian forces captured Kherson in the early days of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but abandoned the city and the western bank of the Dnipro late last year.
They now regularly shell those areas from positions on the eastern bank.
