Russian forces unleashed a fresh wave of attacks on Ukrainian positions and settlements in the east, the General Staff of Ukraine's military said on December 8, as a loud explosion was reported in the strategically important port of Sevastopol, home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Moscow-annexed Crimea.
The General Staff said in its daily report that Russian forces continued their relentless rocket attacks and bombardments on Ukrainian positions in Donetsk -- with particular focus on the towns of Bakhmut and Avdiyivka -- and Luhansk, where Moscow's offensive was concentrated around Stelmakhyivka and Ploschanka.
In the northeastern region of Kharkiv, Russians attacked Ternova, a village several kilometers from the Russian border.
The Ukrainian military also said that Russian occupiers began to mobilize local people in Melitopol in Zaporizhzhya.
Mobilization orders are being issued there to "men of draft age with the requirement to come to the military commissariat in the near future," the military said.
In Sevastopol, a powerful explosion rang out over the central part of the city early on December 8, RFE/RL correspondents reported, adding that seconds before the blast, a sound similar to that emitted by the launching of a rocket could be heard.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed administrator of Sevastopol, said the explosion was the result of the "downing of a drone."
Razvozhayev said on Telegram that a ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet shot down the unmanned aerial vehicle over the Black Sea.
He did not specify whom the drone belonged to.
Starting in August, Sevastopol has been targeted several times by explosions which Russian authorities say were caused by Ukrainian drone attacks.
On December 7, a Russian attack on the town of Kurakhovo in Donetsk killed at least 10 people, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
Zelenskiy said the attack was “very brutal, absolutely calculated” and killed “peaceful people, ordinary people" at a market, a grain elevator, a gas station, a bus stop, and in a residential building.
“The list of the dead so far includes 10 people, many wounded.”
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine's presidential administration, said that the Russian troops shelled Kurakhovo from multiple rocket launchers. The town has been among the hot spots in fighting in the Donbas region.
Tymoshenko posted video footage of buildings in flames on Telegram.
The chief of the national-power-grid operator, Ukrenerho, said on December 7 that Russian forces have fired more than 1,000 rockets and missiles at Ukraine's energy infrastructure since the start of the war.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko warned of an "apocalypse" scenario for the city this winter if Russian air strikes on infrastructure continue. (KB/RFE)