Russia intensifies daytime drone strikes on Ukraine

Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with drones today, the latest in a series of increasingly frequent daytime assaults, killing one person and wounding many more, authorities said.

A drone attack on a shopping centre in Kharkiv killed one person and wounded others, local prosecutors said.

The regional governor, Oleg Synegoubov, posted photos on Telegram showing the charred interior of a department store, with part of a roof and a wall torn away.

Local authorities also reported that three people had been injured in Kherson in a strike on a local bus, and three in Odesa, both in the south of the country.

In Kyiv, AFP journalists heard multiple explosions, with air raid alerts sounding several times this morning.

They also saw numerous people stuck in the metro, which does not cross the capital's Dnipro River during air raids.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported that four people had been injured, two of whom had been taken to hospital. In particular, a drone had crashed onto a road, he said in a separate statement.

Social media footage showed huge plumes of smoke rising from one of the sites targeted in the morning attack.

Russia also carried out its regular overnight attacks across the country.

"The enemy has been attacking the Kyiv region all night with strike drones and ballistic missiles," said the head of the Kyiv region, Tymur Tkachenko, adding that warehouses were targeted.

In the northeastern Sumy region, authorities said one person was killed and four others wounded by Russian attacks.

"The enemy attacked civilian transportation in broad daylight while people were simply going about their business," Yaroslav Shanko, the head of the Kherson city administration, said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeated calls for Kyiv's allies to send more ballistic missile defence packages to counter the attacks.

In a statement this morning, Kyiv's air force said Ukrainian forces had downed seven ballistic missiles, one anti-ship cruise missile, and nearly 90% of the drones.

One person was killed and two more injured in an attack on a shopping centre in Ukraine's second-biggest city ‌of Kharkiv, said the regional governor.

In Kyiv, debris fell in at least two districts, damaging a school and shattering windows at a healthcare facility, said Mayor Vitali Klitschko. Two people were ⁠injured in a daytime attack, he added.

Two people were wounded outside the capital after strikes damaged warehouses and private homes, the regional ‌governor said.

Reuters TV footage showed a big plume of smoke over a warehouse in the region. In the ⁠central Poltava region, ‌air attacks targeted industrial sites and an energy facility, cutting power to seven settlements, its regional governor said.

In Mr Zelensky's hometown of Kryvyi Rih, a steel-and-mining hub, three people were wounded after a missile strike on an industrial facility there. Three more people were wounded in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia after strikes ⁠on an unspecified production facility.

In an hours-long attack on the southern Odesa region, infrastructure, an educational facility and a ⁠multi-storey building were damaged, officials said. Three people were wounded.

Russia's defence ministry said Moscow had struck steelworks in Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia, an oil refinery in the Poltava region, logistics centres around Kyiv and three ports in the Odesa region.

Six Russian drones also crossed into the air space of neighbouring Moldova, local authorities said, prompting President Maia Sandu to "strongly condemn this intimidation".

One of them was found on Moldovan territory.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has also fired hundreds of long-range drones almost nightly at targets in Russia.

Russian defence ministers that air defences shot down 267 Ukrainian drones over 14 Russian regions, illegally annexed Crimea, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

After razing huge warehouses in recent months belonging to Wildberries, Russia's biggest online retailer, Ukrainian drones are now taking aim at Ozon, the country’s second-largest e-commerce company.

Ozon said its logistics facilities in the cities of Orenburg and Ufa were attacked but neither of the premises caught fire.

Russia threatens Britain over missile support for Ukraine

Meanwhile, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has said that Russia could strike British military targets inside and outside Ukraine in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russia using British missiles.

Maria Zakharova called on Britain to back off what she called the UK's hostile stance on Ukraine, which she said risked taking the conflict to an entirely new level.

She had told the same Moscow news briefing earlier that Britain and France were "playing with fire" by supplying sensitive missile technology to Ukraine.

Ms Zakharova said London was "one step away" from becoming legally complicit in what she called "terrorism" against Russian civilians, something she said would have "catastrophic consequences" unless Britain changed course.

"We have repeatedly warned that any British military installations and equipment in Ukraine and beyond its borders could be targeted in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory carried out using British weapons," she said.

"We propose that the British leadership once again carefully analyse the situation and immediately, in the most resolute and unequivocal manner, abandon the hostile, aggressive line, which can only ... create the risk of the conflict escalating to an entirely new level."

Britain announced on Monday that it would allow Kyiv access to classified technology to start its own production of Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles, capable of carrying out strikes deep within Russia.

France has already given its assent to license the technology for the European missile.

Russian forces 4km from Sloviansk, army chief claims

Russia's army chief Valery Gerasimov has visited Moscow's troops on the Ukraine front, the defence ministry said, vowing to seize more east Ukrainian towns and villages.

In a video released by the ministry, Mr Gerasimov said Russian forces were advancing on the east Ukrainian town of Sloviansk and praised their "successes".

"The offensive is proceeding at an unabated pace on all fronts," he said. "There are four kilometres left to the eastern suburbs of Sloviansk." AFP could not independently verify the claim.

Russia has not eased its maximalist demand that Ukraine cede the rest of the east, with the Kremlin tasking troops with taking control of the whole of the Donetsk region.

Sloviansk and nearby Kramatorsk are the last major hubs under Ukrainian control in the Donetsk region, part of the so-called fortress belt - a chain of heavily fortified defence lines built by Kyiv since 2014.

Sloviansk has been a symbol of Ukrainian resistance since 2014, when it was held for around three months by pro-Russian separatist forces before Kyiv retook it.