Igor Klymenko

At least 11 people were wounded on Sunday in a series of Russian strikes on Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, emergency services announced.

The regional capital was hit by several "massive aerial strikes" at dawn, Ukrainian emergency services said in a statement.

A Russian strike on the historic centre of Lviv in western Ukraine has killed seven people including three children, officials said Wednesday, a day after a particularly bloody attack in the central city of Poltava in which dozens died.

Moscow has stepped up its aerial attacks after Ukraine's offensive in Russia's Kursk region, which caught Russian troops by surprise.

The United Nations rights office said on Thursday that it has asked Moscow to allow it to visit Russian border regions affected by a cross-border attack by Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian servicemen operate an armoured military vehicle on a road near the border with Russia, in the Sumy region of Ukraine, on August 14, 2024.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Ukrainian troops had "advanced well" in Russia's Kursk region, as Kiev's biggest cross-border attack stretched into a second week.

The death toll from Russian strikes on a hardware store in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv rose to 14 Sunday, the regional governor said as rescuers searched the charred debris for bodies.

"The number of dead has grown to 14," Oleg Synegubov, Kharkiv regional governor, said on Telegram, as nearly 200 rescuers worked at the scene.

This handout photograph taken and released by State Emergency Service of Ukraine on April 2, 2024, shows firefighters working to extinguishing a fire that authorities said has been damaged during a missile strike, in the eastern city of Dnipro

A Russian strike on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernigiv Wednesday killed  at least 11 people and 20 wounded more, as Kiev again sounded the alarm over shortages in its air defense capabilities.

First responders searched for survivors in rubble, carrying away the wounded on stretchers as a pool of blood formed on the ground near the scene of the strikes, official images showed.

Russian air attacks killed six people in northeast Ukraine on Thursday, authorities said, as President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of cynically targeting civilians.

Russian forces have stepped up their aerial bombardment of Ukraine in recent weeks, resulting in power cuts for thousands of people as the country's electricity grid is targeted.

Russia rained missiles on Ukraine's two main cities, killing four people and injuring dozens while 250,000 consumers in the capital region were left without power in near-freezing temperatures.

The attacks on the capital Kiev and the northeastern city of Kharkiv came less than 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would intensify strikes.

Russia launched a massive air attack over Ukraine on Friday, killing at least 30 people and wounding scores across the country in the fiercest assault since the first days of the war nearly two years ago.

Schools, a maternity hospital, shopping arcades and blocks of flats were among the buildings hit in the barrage, said Ukrainian officials.