A Russian missile attack on Friday on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown killed one policeman and wounded at least 73 people, including nine policemen, Ukrainian officials said.
Another attack in the southern Kherson region killed three people.
The strikes were among multiple Russian attacks across the country overnight, officials said.
Meanwhile, Moscow is trying to strengthen its position politically with local elections in the four regions it has illegally annexed, even though it does not fully control any of the four.
Ukraine is more than a country fighting Russian aggression.
It is a personal moral choice about what is truly valuable, what you believe in, and what your true priorities are.
This war lays a moral foundation that transcends borders. It must be humanistic. It must prevail. pic.twitter.com/xruHCgWZguAdvertisement— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 8, 2023
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it does not recognise the “fake elections”.
The strikes came days after 16 people were killed in a Russian attack on a market in eastern Ukraine and drone debris was found in Romania.
That sparked fears among local residents that the war could spread into the Nato-member country bordering Ukraine.
Ten buildings were damaged in the attack on Mr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine on Friday.
Nine policemen were among those wounded, according to Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s interior minister.
Photos posted by Mr Klymenko on Telegram showed a building on fire, burnt timbers and emergency services evacuating the wounded. By evening, the number of wounded rose to 73, according to the interior ministry.
Three people were also killed on Friday after a Russian bomb hit the village of Odradokamianka in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, Mr Klymenko said.
Also on Friday, a funeral was held for an 18-year-old who was among 16 people killed on Wednesday in a Russian attack on a market in Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack, which also wounded 33, turned the market into a fiery, blackened ruin and overshadowed a two-day visit by US secretary of state Antony Blinken aimed at assessing Ukraine’s three-month-old counteroffensive.
Meanwhile, Russia is holding local elections in the part of the Kherson region it controls. Local elections are also being held in the Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
In Kherson, local residents and Ukrainian activists say election poll workers have made house calls accompanied by armed soldiers.
Ukraine has dismissed the elections, calling on its allies to condemn Russia’s actions and urging them not to recognise any administration created as a result of the votes.
The war continued to raise difficult questions for other countries trying to manage the war’s fallout on food security, inflation and other matters.
The UK announced on Friday it will host a global food security summit in November in response to Russia’s withdrawal from a Black Sea grain deal and attacks on Ukraine’s grain supply.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson in the meantime visited Ukraine on Friday and attended the Yalta European Strategy forum.
In a video posted on Mr Zelensky’s Telegram channel, Mr Johnson was seen listening to the Ukraine leader’s speech along with Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia, who now leads an international working group on sanctions against Moscow, with Mr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak.
Mr Zelensky in his speech said that “for many in the world, Ukraine is not just a country in Europe that is defending itself against Russian aggression”, it is “now a personal moral choice” and a symbol of ”a standard of freedom in which people from different countries recognise their own standards”.
