Russia on July 12 launched more kamikaze drones on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities for a second day in a row, while shelling of other cities and towns in eastern Ukraine caused death and injuries as Russia announced that the Wagner mercenary group is completing its handover of weapons to the Russian Army.
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Eighteen people were injured in a residential area of Zaporizhzhya as a result of shelling of the southeastern city, regional Governor Yuriy Malashko said.
Among the injured were six children, Malashko said on Telegram, adding that several of the injured required treatment at a hospital.
In the nearby Kherson region, an 81-year-old man was killed and his 82-year-old wife was injured when their house was shelled and caught fire, the press service of the regional government said.
One person died and five others, including a child, were injured by Russian shelling in the Kherson region the day before, authorities said.
In the northeast, Russian troops shelled a border village in the Kharkiv region, hitting a private house and starting a fire that caused significant damage, the Interior Ministry said.
The ministry said firefighters quickly extinguished the fire. The State Emergency Service said the Russian strike completely destroyed the home.
Russia has denied targeting civilians in the conflict despite abundant evidence to the contrary.
The Ukrainian military said earlier on July 12 that most of the kamikaze drones launched by Russian forces were shot down by air defenses.
All Iranian-made drones in the airspace around Kyiv were destroyed, the head of the Ukrainian capital's military administration, Serhiy Popko, said on Telegram
Separately, the Ukrainian air defense said it shot down 11 out of 15 drones launched by Russia.
In Ukraine's central region of Cherkasy, two people suffered burns after a drone hit infrastructure, causing a fire, the region's governor, Ihor Taburets, said on Telegram.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian troops fighting near Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region are moving forward at a "fairly moderate pace" and the initiative remains with them, according to Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesman for Ukraine's defense forces in the eastern region.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian military said in its early morning report on July 12 that Ukrainian and Russian forces fought 29 close-combat battles in the area.
British intelligence and the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said on July 8 that. after a lull in June, Bakhmut had again become the site of some of the fiercest fighting on the front. They confirmed that Ukrainian forces achieved steady success both in the north and in the south of the city, which was previously fully occupied by Russia.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, the head of Ukraine's southern command, said Ukrainian troops destroyed seven Russian ammunition depots in one day in the Tavria direction.
It was not possible for RFE/RL to verify Ukraine’s claims of battlefield success.
WATCH: During a counteroffensive operation in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian soldiers reclaimed territory that had been occupied by Russia and Moscow-backed separatist forces for nearly a decade.
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Ukrainian Troops Inch Forward Amid Heavy Fighting In The Donetsk Region
In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said more than 2,000 pieces of military hardware from the private military company Wagner had been turned over following the mercenary group's short-lived mutiny last month.
The group is completing its handover of weapons, including tanks, rockets, and more than 2,500 tons of ammunition, and about 20,000 small arms, to Russia's regular armed forces, the ministry said on July 12.
The weapons have been transferred to rear positions where the equipment can be maintained or repaired, the ministry said.
The handover follows a deal under which Wagner and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, called off their mutiny. The Wagner fighters, who took part in some of the heaviest fighting of the war in Ukraine, were given the option of joining Prigozhin in exile in Belarus, joining Russia's regular armed forces, or going home.
The whereabouts of Prigozhin are still unknown. Belarusian authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka told reporters last week that the 62-year-old mercenary chief was in Russia.