Fresh Russian strikes in eastern Ukraine left at least four people dead and more than a dozen wounded, officials said, as both sides continue trading attacks in a war now in its fifth year.
In the town of Dergachi in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, two men aged 68 and 25 were killed and almost two dozen others were wounded, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said.
Russian forces occupied swathes of the Kharkiv border region when they invaded in 2022, but were pushed back months later in a Ukrainian offensive that embarrassed the Kremlin.
In a separate strike farther south-east, an attack on Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region killed two people, the city’s mayor Oleksandr Goncharenko said on Facebook.
Earlier, Ukrainian strikes killed six people, including two children, in occupied Ukraine, as well as in the Russian border regions of Belgorod and Bryansk, local authorities said.
Ukraine regularly targets Russia in retaliation for the daily bombardments it has been subjected to since the start of the large-scale Russian offensive in February 2022.
Four people, among them two children, were killed in the frontline town of Gorlivka in the occupied Donetsk region, the local Moscow-installed administration said.
“As a result of Ukrainian armed aggression in the Kalininsky district of Gorlovka, four civilians have been killed, including two children born in 2012 and 2013,” mayor Ivan Prikhodko said, using a Russian spelling for the town.
During the early hours, two people died after Ukrainian drones attacked the western Russian border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod, local authorities said.
The reports came after intense Russian bombardments over the weekend that particularly targeted Kyiv, with Moscow using a nuclear-capable missile, killing four people and wounding more than 100, Ukrainian authorities said.
The aftermath of missile strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine
Russia said the raid was in retaliation for a Ukrainian drone attack on educational buildings in the Russian-occupied Lugansk region that left 21 dead and more than 40 injured.
The latest exchanges come as the front lines remain effectively deadlocked, while both armies increasingly rely on swarms of explosive-laden drones to strike targets behind the battlefield.
Moscow’s invasion, intended to force the swift capitulation of Kyiv, has become the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, killing hundreds of thousands of people on both sides and displacing millions.
Russia and Ukraine have intensified deadly strikes in recent weeks as US-led efforts to end the war have stalled, with Washington’s attention diverted to the Middle East.
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Kremlin says won’t pass on Russian director’s call to end war to Putin
The Kremlin said it will not relay to President Vladimir Putin an appeal by Russian film director Andrei Zvyagintsev – delivered in a speech at the Cannes Film Festival – urging him to “end the slaughter” in Ukraine.
Accepting the Grand Prix prize for his film “Minotaur” at the weekend, Mr Zvyagintsev addressed Mr Putin directly, arguing the Russian leader was the “only person” who could stop the war and condemning the Kremlin’s full-scale offensive against Ukraine.
Andrey Zvyagintsev winner of the Grand Prix Award for ‘Minotaur’ at a press conference in Cannes
Asked whether the remarks would be conveyed to Mr Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “I for one, will not do it. I do not think that anyone else will do it.”
Mr Peskov said Mr Zvyagintsev did “not have the right” to make such statements, because he has not criticised Kyiv.
In his Cannes speech, Mr Zvyagintsev said he understood Mr Putin would not be watching, but believed “there are people in his entourage that know how to pass on these words to him”.
“Millions of people from both sides of the contact line are dreaming just of one thing: for the massacres to stop,” he told Mr Putin.
“You are the only person that can stop this meat grinder, Mr President of Russia. Stop this slaughter already.”
Mr Zvyagintsev’s film follows a provincial Russian businessman whose life unravels as he is forced to decide which employees to send to fight in Ukraine, portraying the pressures of life in wartime Russia.
The Kremlin said last week it was too early to say whether “Minotaur” would receive permission to be screened in Russia, which introduced sweeping censorship after troops were sent into Ukraine in 2022.
But Mr Zvyagintsev said he believes many Russians will still find a way to watch “Minotaur”, pointing to film piracy and VPNs.
