KYIV - Russia said on Monday its military hit Ukrainian airbases in overnight strikes and Ukrainian forces shelled industrial facilities inside Russia as both sides sought the upper hand ahead of what Kyiv hopes will be a decisive counter-offensive.

In a rare acknowledgement of damage to a military “target”, Ukraine said that work was under way to restore a runway and that five aircraft were taken out of service in the western region of Khmelnitskiy, though it did not name the sites.

A military airfield was sited in the region before the war.

“At the moment, work is continuing to contain fires in storage facilities for fuel and lubricants and munitions,” the Khmelnitskiy regional governor’s office said.

Russian state-owned news agency RIA cited the Defence Ministry as saying more than one airbase had been hit. There was no confirmation from Ukraine of damage to other air bases.

The Ukrainian capital came under attack for the 16th time this month after a second successive night of bombardment. But officials said most of the drones and missiles fired overnight had been shot down, and no targets were hit in the morning.

The attacks, which sent Kyiv residents running for shelter in metro stations, were part of a new wave of Russian air strikes in May as Ukraine, armed with new Western weapons, prepares a push to try to take back territory Russia has seized in the “special military operation” launched in February 2022.

“With these constant attacks, the enemy seeks to keep the civilian population in deep psychological tension,” said the head of the city’s military administration Serhiy Popko.

Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said two people were killed and eight wounded in a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Toretsk in the eastern region of Donetsk on Monday.

Wagner forces replaced in Bakhmut

Mr Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for the eastern group of Ukrainian Forces, told Ukrainian television there had been three military clashes in his region in the past 24 hours.

“But the enemy has maintained its fire on our positions. There were 373 shelling hits of various types in the past 24 hours and six air strikes on our positions,” he said.

Ukrainian forces returned fire, Mr Cherevatyi said, and 155 enemy soldiers had been killed and 116 wounded.

Reuters was not able to confirm the battlefield accounts.

Mr Cherevatyi also said that Wagner mercenary units were being replaced in the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut by Russian paratroops and motorised units.

Russia’s Wagner private army began handing over positions to regular troops this week after declaring full control of Bakhmut following the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.

He said Ukraine’s military was conducting “a reorganisation and other military moves… so that further movement can be even more successful in terms of hitting the enemy”.

Moscow said it invaded Ukraine to “denazify” its neighbour and protect Russian speakers. Western opponents say the invasion is an imperialist land grab in which tens of thousands have been killed, millions uprooted and cities reduced to ruins.

Russia has said it is open to resuming peace talks with Kyiv, which stalled a few months after Russia invaded, and has welcomed mediation efforts from Brazil and China.

But a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv’s peace plan, envisaging the full withdrawal of Russian troops, was the only way to end the war. The time for mediation efforts was over, he said.

“There cannot be a Brazilian peace plan, a Chinese peace plan, a South African peace plan when you are talking about the war in Ukraine,” chief diplomatic adviser Ihor Zhovkva told Reuters in an interview late on Friday.

Call for a DMZ

Another Zelensky aide, Mr Mykhailo Podolyak, wrote on Twitter that any post-war settlement should include a demilitarised zone of 100-120km inside Russia along the border.

The European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday that he believed Russia would not want to negotiate while it was still trying to win the war.

Ukraine’s military said an attack on Odessa port had caused a fire and damaged infrastructure, but did not specify whether the damage threatened grain exports.

Ukraine is a key global grain supplier and the port is vital for shipping. It is also one of three countries in a United Nations-brokered deal on the safe export of grain via the Black Sea.

Russia said on Monday that the grain deal would no longer be operational unless a UN agreement with Moscow to overcome obstacles to Russian grain and fertiliser exports was fulfilled.

In May, Moscow reluctantly agreed to extend the grain deal until July 17.

After months of attacks on energy facilities, Russia is now targeting military facilities and supplies to try to disrupt Ukraine’s preparations for its counter-attack, Kyiv says.

Moscow says Ukraine has stepped up drone and sabotage attacks on targets inside Russia as it readies the offensive.

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said several frontier settlements were shelled simultaneously by Ukrainian forces on Monday.

Two industrial facilities were hit in the town of Shebekino and four employees were wounded, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine and Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports on the scale of the attacks on either side. REUTERS