KYIV (AFP) — A Russian strike on a southern Ukraine market killed six people on Tuesday, authorities said, as the nation held a moment of silence marking a major public holiday honoring its troops.

Debris, broken glass and bodies were strewn around the market in Kherson city, which lies on the western bank of the Dnipro river, a de facto front line between Russian forces in the east and Ukrainian forces in the west.

The regional prosecutor’s office had reported seven killed, but later lowered the toll to six, saying that doctors stabilized one of those presumed dead.

“Around 9 a.m. on 1 October, Russian forces struck the center of Kherson, allegedly with cannon artillery. The shelling took place near a local market and a public transport stop,” it said on Telegram.

In the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region a Russian strike killed one and wounded 32, Ukraine’s interior ministry said.

The deadly attack came as Ukraine held a nationwide moment of silence remembering the country’s war dead on Defenders Day, the third since Russia invaded in 2022.

Traffic came to a halt in the capital Kyiv as dozens of residents held portraits of loved ones who had died in the war, some weeping.

President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the army in a speech to soldiers, acknowledging that his troops had suffered “painful moments” on what he said was a “difficult” path to victory.

“Inside we are all screaming with pain for each fallen hero, screaming with hatred for the evil that has come to our land,” he said.

Russia advancing

Russia has been advancing on the eastern front for months, and on Tuesday claimed to capture two more frontline villages including one just 13 kilometers from the key Ukrainian supply hub of Pokrovsk.

Moscow has pressed ahead even as Kyiv’s forces mount an offensive into the Russian region of Kursk.

Russian authorities have also waged an intense crackdown against dissent at home, announcing Tuesday that they had detained 39 people including children accused of backing “Ukrainian terrorist” groups.

A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced 13 people to lengthy jail terms over sabotage attacks that prosecutors said were an attempt to thwart Moscow’s offensive on Ukraine.

Russia has seen a spate of arson and other attacks on railway and military sites since it sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, with courts often metering out harsh punishments to those arrested.

A military court in the Siberian city of Chita said it had sentenced 13 people over 13 sabotage attacks on “strategically important transportation infrastructure facilities” and critical energy sites.

It said they were acting with the “aim of undermining the economic security and defense capability of the Russian Federation” and trying to get Moscow to “cease participation in the special military operation,” Russia’s official term for its Ukraine campaign.

They were sentenced to between four and 23 years in jail.

It said 12 were members of a criminal group that was run by an “unidentified person,” with one labelled an “accomplice.”

The group was also plotting to set fire to Russian fighter jets at a military base in the Far East when they were arrested, the court said.

Video published by the court showed several defendants — all men — standing in metal cages as the judge read out the sentences.

Russia’s vast railway network, which is used to ferry troops and equipment for the Ukraine offensive, has been hit with several sabotage attacks amid the military campaign.