THE UKRAINIAN PRESIDENCY reported “heavy fighting” in “almost the entire territory” of the strategic Russian-occupied southern region of Kherson as Ukrainian troops continue a widely anticipated counter-offensive.

Kherson, the first major city to fall to Russia after its 24 February invasion, shares its name with the region that is important for agriculture and is adjacent to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.

The counteroffensive began yesterday.

In late July, Sergey Khlan, a local deputy and adviser to the regional governor, said the region would be recaptured by Kyiv’s forces by September.

In Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, at least five people have been killed as Russian shelling hit the centre, the mayor Igor Terekhov said.

Seven people were also wounded.

Regional governor, Oleg Synegubov, gave a slightly lower death toll of four and said another four were injured.

“The Russian occupiers shelled the central districts of Kharkiv,” Synegubov said on Telegram, as he warned residents to “stay inside the shelters”.

Also today, Zelenskyy met with a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ahead of its long-awaited visit to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

“We want the IAEA mission… to reach the plant and do everything possible to avoid the dangers” of a nuclear disaster, Zelenskyy said of the site which has been targeted by repeated shelling, according to a video released by the presidency.

The plant – Europe’s largest atomic facility – has been occupied by Russian troops since early March.

“This is probably one of the top-priority questions regarding the safety of Ukraine and the world today,” Zelenskyy said, calling for the “immediate de-militarization of the plant” and its transfer to “full Ukrainian control”.

The facility was targeted over the weekend by fresh shelling, Ukraine’s nuclear agency Energoatom said, with Moscow and Kyiv trading blame for attacks around the complex of six nuclear reactors located on the banks of the Dnipro River.

Ukraine’s government will also ask the UN’s cultural watchdog to add the historic port city of Odessa to its World Heritage List of protected sites as Moscow’s forces approach the city.

Russian forces are within several dozen kilometres  of Odessa, which blossomed after empress Catherine the Great decreed in the late 18th century that it would be Russia’s modern gateway to the Black Sea.

Czar Alexander soon named as governor France’s Duc de Richelieu, who oversaw its stately construction and whose statue still stands atop the monumental Potemkin stairs.

“Odessa is in danger right now,” Ukraine’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko told AFP after meeting with UNESCO director Audrey Azoulay in Paris.