Russian shelling in the town of Chasiv Yar has killed five people, as Moscow’s troops pushed ahead in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack struck a high-rise building and a private home, said regional governor Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged 24 to 38.
He urged the last remaining residents to leave the front-line town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.
Mr Filaskhin wrote on social media: “Normal life has been impossible in Chasiv Yar for more than two years. Do not become a Russian target – evacuate.”
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A further two people were killed by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region. One victim was pulled from the rubble of a house in the village of Cherkaska Lozova, said governor Oleh Syniehubov, while a second woman died of her injuries while being transported to a hospital.
Meanwhile, Russia’s ministry of defence said its forces had captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.
Russian forces have been driving deeper into the partly occupied eastern region, the total capture of which is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions. Russia’s army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defence in the area.
At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion on to Russian soil since the second World War.
The move is partly an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.
Elsewhere, the number of wounded following a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday continued to rise.
Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old girl, when glide bombs struck five locations across the city, said regional governor Oleh Syniehubov. Writing on social media on Saturday, he said that the number of injured had risen from 47 to 96.
Mr Syniehubov also confirmed that the 12-storey apartment block that was hit by one bomb strike, setting the building ablaze and trapping at least one person on an upper floor, would be partly demolished.
Ukrainian officials have previously pointed to the Kharkiv strikes as further evidence that western partners should scrap restrictions on what the Ukrainian military can target with donated weapons.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov said that Kyiv had presented Washington with a list of potential long-range targets within Russia for its approval.
“I hope we were heard,” he said.
He also denied speculation that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s decision to dismiss the Commander of the country’s air force on Friday was directly linked to the destruction of an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its western partners four days earlier.
The order to dismiss Lieut Gen Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website minutes before an address which saw Mr Zelensky stress the need to “take care of all our soldiers”.
“This is two separate issues,” said Mr Umerov. “At this stage, I would not connect them.”
The number of injured also continued to rise in the Russian border region of Belgorod, where five people were killed on Friday by Ukrainian shelling, said governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
He said 46 people had been injured, of whom 37 were in the hospital, including seven children. Writing on social media, Mr Gladkov also said that two others had been injured in Ukrainian shelling across the region.
Elsewhere, five people were killed and 46 injured in a Ukrainian attack on the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod late on Friday, the local governor said.
Vyacheslav Gladkov said that 37 of the injured, including seven children, were taken to hospital.
Video from a car dashboard, posted on social media and purporting to demonstrate the attack, showed another car being blown up while moving on the road. Seconds later an explosion is seen on the other side of the road. Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video.
Earlier, Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg told German weekly Welt am Sonntag that Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk is legitimate and covered by Kyiv’s right to self-defence, in his first reaction to the advance.
“Ukraine has a right to defend itself. And according to international law, this right does not stop at the border,” Mr Stoltenberg told the paper, adding that Nato had not been informed about Ukraine’s plans beforehand and did not play a role in them.
The Nato chief said Ukraine was running a risk with the advance on to Russian territory but that it was up to Kyiv how to conduct its military campaign.
“President Zelenskiy has made clear that the operation aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further Russian attacks from across the border,” he said.
“Like all military operations, this comes with risks. But it is Ukraine’s decision how to defend itself.”
Russia has called the Kursk operation a “major provocation” and said it would retaliate. – AP/Reuters