Reoccupy Zaporizhzhia Village...Day-to-day bombardment of grain export ports

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have re-occupied the town of Levadne in the Ukrainian state of Zaporizhzhia.

Levadne is a small town southwest of Donetsk province, where Russian forces have recently concentrated their offensive, and is one of seven towns seized by Russian forces in 2022 and recaptured by Ukraine, which launched a counteroffensive in June last year.

"I am confident that the Russian military will continue to advance and that all villages in Zaporizhzhia will be liberated," Zaporizhzhia chief Yevgeny Balitsky said on Wednesday local time.

Russian forces also continued airstrikes at Black Sea ports aimed at exporting grain to Ukraine.

Odessa Governor Olech Kiefer said a ballistic missile hit the port of Odessa, killing one person and injuring eight others, and damaging two civilian ships.

In Kherson, east of Odessa, a drone strike killed two women in a car, Ukraine's interior ministry said.

The U.S. think tank War Research Institute analyzed that Russian forces had stepped up their counteroffensive to drive out Ukrainian forces before bad weather limited their operations.