KYIV, July 26 - Russia targeted Ukraine’s southern Black Sea regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv with airstrikes Tuesday, hitting private buildings and port infrastructure with missiles fired from long-range bomber aircraft, the Ukrainian military said.

In the Odesa region, buildings in coastal villages were hit and caught fire, Ukraine’s Operational Command South said on Facebook, The Associated Press reported. A Ukrainian air force spokesman said long-range Russian Tu-22M3 bombers and Su-30 and Su-35 fighter jets launched the strikes from the Black Sea. In the Mykolaiv region, port infrastructure was targeted despite agreements intended to allow grain shipments to resume from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

While Ukrainian officials have spoken of a possible counteroffensive in the south, the British Defense Ministry reported Tuesday no indication a Ukrainian warship and a stockpile of anti-ship missiles were at Odesa’s port, as Moscow claimed when it struck the site over the weekend.

The British ministry said Russia sees Ukraine’s use of anti-ship missiles as “a key threat” limiting its Black Sea Fleet.

“This has significantly undermined the overall invasion plan, as Russia cannot realistically attempt an amphibious assault to seize Odesa,” the ministry said. “Russia will continue to prioritize efforts to degrade and destroy Ukraine’s anti-ship capability.”

It added, “Russia’s targeting processes are highly likely routinely undermined by dated intelligence, poor planning, and a top-down approach to operations.”

In other military developments, Russian shelling over the previous 24 hours killed at least three civilians and wounded eight in Ukraine, the Ukrainian president’s office said Tuesday.

In the eastern Donetsk region, where the fighting has focused in recent months, shelling continued along the entire front, with Russian forces targeting some of the region’s largest cities, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Toretsk, the presidential office said.

Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko accused Russian troops of using cluster munitions and repeated his call for civilians to evacuate.

“There is not a single safe place left. Everything is being shelled,” Kyrylenko said in televised remarks. “But there are still evacuation routes for the civilian population.”

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, reported that Moscow was using mercenaries from the shadowy Wagner Group to capture the Vuhledar Power Plant on the northern outskirts of the Bakhmut region village of Novoluhanske.

But Russian forces have made “limited gains” there, Ukraine’s General Staff acknowledged.

The main regional Russian focus for the moment is on capturing Bakhmut, which the Russian military needs to press its eastern offensive on Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk, the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

“Russian forces made marginal gains south of Bakhmut but are unlikely to be able to effectively leverage these advances to take full control of Bakhmut itself,” the Institute for the Study of War said.

Russian forces continued to strike civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and the surrounding region in the country’s northeast.

Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said the strikes on the city resumed around dawn Tuesday and damaged a car dealership.

“The Russians deliberately target civilian infrastructure objects — hospitals, schools, movie theaters,” Syniehubov told Ukrainian television. “Everything is being fired at, even queues for humanitarian aid, so we’re urging people to avoid mass gatherings.” (ap/ez)