A Russian missile and drone attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro killed five civilians and injured 47 others, including a 14-year-old girl, according to authorities.
The explosions shattered some windows of a shopping mall and rained glass fragments onto the street, photos released by local authorities show.
Mayor Borys Filatov said the attack, which took place in broad daylight, also broke the windows of two schools and three kindergartens.
Debris hit the intensive care unit of a children’s hospital and a fire broke out in another hospital.
A video posted on social media by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shows a rocket leaving a trail of fire across buildings in Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, with debris being thrown into the air by the impact.
The war, which has now been going on for three years since Russia invaded its neighbouring country, has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 civilians and injured around 20,000 others, according to the United Nations.
In the Kharkiv region in the northeast, the village council building was hit by Russian artillery shelling, killing one person and wounding two others, said regional head Oleh Suniehubov.
Elsewhere in the region, a Russian glide bomb hit a residential building in the village of Ruska Lozova, injuring at least two people.
Others may be trapped under rubble, Syniehubov said.
Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced that Ukraine had received $2.2 billion from the International Monetary Fund under an ongoing credit facility.
The loan program provides for the disbursement of $16 billion, but before the individual parts are released, Ukraine must pass an IMF review of its progress on key economic and fiscal goals.
The new funds would be used, among other things, for social benefits and the salaries of doctors and teachers, Shmyhal said.
Meanwhile, NATO allies have agreed to provide Ukraine with 40 billion euros in military aid in 2025, two Western European diplomats said a week before a scheduled meeting of NATO leaders in Washington.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had asked allies to commit to maintaining military aid to Kyiv for several years at the same level as since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This corresponds to about 40 billion euros (64 billion Australian dollars) per year.
Although member states did not support Stoltenberg’s original call for such a multi-year commitment, the pact contains a provision that allies’ contributions should be reassessed at future NATO summits, a diplomat said on Wednesday.
A Ukrainian drone attack also injured eight workers at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and left a nearby town largely without electricity and water, Russian-backed officials said on Wednesday.
In a statement on Telegram, the plant management said eight employees were injured in an attack by three Ukrainian kamikaze drones on a power substation near the plant in southeastern Ukraine.
It was said that all injured workers were receiving medical treatment.
Reuters could not independently confirm the incident and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
with Reuters