Seven people were killed by Russian artillery strikes in the region of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian authorities announced.

Three adults and two children of the same family were killed in the village of Chiroka Balka and two more people in the village of Stanislav,” said Ukraine’s Interior Minister Igor Klymenko.

“A man, his wife and their 23-year-old baby were killed by enemy artillery fire,” the Ukrainian interior minister wrote on Telegram.

Their 12-year-old child is hospitalized with serious injuries, he clarified.

“An entire family was killed in the village of Chiroka Balka,” Klimenko wrote, while a total of 13 people were injured by Russian shelling.

France condemned “in the strongest terms” these bombings, which once again show Russia’s contempt for all the principles of international humanitarian law, which it blatantly and repeatedly violates, the representative of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Kherson is one of the four regions of Russia that Russian President Vladimir Putin claims to annex (September 2022). It remains partially under Ukrainian control, but is routinely targeted by Russian bombing.

According to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office, 500 children have been killed in Ukraine and 1,100 injured since the start of the Russian offensive in February 2022.

On the other side of the front, Ukrainian shelling killed a civilian in the village of Zaitseve in Moscow-controlled territory, according to local authorities.

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region announced on his Telegram channel that an explosion in an apartment block in the city of Belgorod this afternoon was likely caused by a Ukrainian fighter drone.

No casualties were reported.

In Russia, the Ministry of Defense announced that three Ukrainian drones were shot down today over the Belgorod region and one more over Kursk.