Kyiv launched artillery barragesthat destroyed a Russian arms depot in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, Ukrainian military officials said.

Officials said that Ukraine carried out a "special operation" to free military captives in the region, which is under Russian control.

The strikes destroyed artillery, armored vehicles and a "warehouse with ammunition in the town of Nova Kakhovka, the officials said.

Russian-backed authorities in the occupied Kherson region accused Ukrainian forces of damaging civilian infrastructure and killing at least seven people.

"Warehouses were hit, as were shops, a pharmacy, petrol stations and even a church," the head of Moscow's civilian-military administration in the Kherson region, Vladimir Leontiev, said on Telegram.

The deputy head of the Russian-backed administration in Kherson, Ekaterina Gubareva, said Kyiv had used US-supplied long-range, precision artillery systems in the strikes on Nova Kakhovka.

"The occupiers have already felt very well what modern artillery is and they will not have a safe rear anywhere on our land," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his evening address, referring to heavy weaponry supplied by the West.