Ukraine

KREMENCHUK, Ukraine, June 27 (Reuters) - Two Russian missiles slammed into a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on Monday, killing at least three people and wounding 40, senior Ukrainian officials said.

The attack caused a huge fire and sent dark smoke billowing into the sky, footage circulated by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy showed.

A Reuters reporter saw the charred husk of a shopping complex with a caved-in roof. Firefighters and soldiers were pulling out mangled pieces of metal as they searched for survivors.

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia was mounting an all-out assault on the last Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Luhansk region, “pouring fire” on the city of Lysychansk from the ground and air, the local governor said Monday, as Western leaders met to discuss ways of bolstering support for Kyiv.

Kyiv, Jun 26 (AP-PTI) Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital in the early hours of Sunday morning, striking at least two residential buildings, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, as elsewhere Russian troops consolidated their gains in the east.

Associated Press journalists in Kyiv saw rescue services battling flames and rescuing civilians. Klitschko said two people were hospitalized with injuries.

KYIV, June 25 (Reuters) - Russia is using its reserve forces in a covert mobilisation to replenish its ranks in eastern Ukraine and there is no point in simply waiting for its offensive potential to fizzle out, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency said on Saturday.

Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence, told Reuters in an interview in Kyiv that he believed Ukraine could only achieve a victory against Russia through military force.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital in the early hours of Sunday morning, striking at least two residential buildings, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, as elsewhere Russian troops consolidated their gains in the east.

Associated Press journalists in Kyiv saw rescue services battling flames and rescuing civilians. Klitschko said four people were hospitalized with injuries and a 7-year-old girl was pulled alive from the rubble. Culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said on Telegram that a kindergarten was hit in the attacks.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces were seeking to swallow up the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Luhansk region, pressing their momentum after taking full control Saturday of the charred ruins of Sievierodonetsk and the chemical plant where hundreds of Ukrainian troops and civilians had been holed up.

Russia also launched dozens of missiles on several areas across the country far from the heart of the eastern battles. Some of the missiles were fired from Russian long-range Tu-22 bombers deployed from Belarus for the first time, Ukraine’s air command said.

KYIV, June 25 (Reuters) - U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket systems are already working and hitting targets in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, the country's top general said on Saturday.

"Artillerymen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine skillfully hit certain targets - military targets of the enemy on our, Ukrainian, territory," Chief of Ukraine's General Staff Valeriy Zaluzhnyi wrote on the Telegram app.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces are trying to block a city in eastern Ukraine, the region’s governor said Saturday, after their relentless assault on a nearby city forced Ukrainian troops to begin withdrawal after weeks of intense fighting.

Russia also launched missile attacks on areas far from the heart of the eastern battles.

KYIV, June 24 (Reuters) - Ukraine said Russian forces had "fully occupied" a town south of the strategically important city of Lysychansk in the eastern Luhansk region as of Friday, and Moscow claimed it had encircled about 2,000 Ukrainian troops in the area.

The loss of Hirske and several other settlements around it leaves Lysychansk, the last major Ukrainian-controlled city in Luhansk, in danger of being enveloped from three sides by advancing Russian forces.

KIEV, June 24 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian forces were ordered to withdraw from Severodonetsk, the administrative center of the Ukraine-controlled part of the eastern Lugansk region, a regional governor said on Friday.

"The soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard were ordered to withdraw to new positions, to new fortified areas, and carry out full-fledged combat operations from those positions," Serhiy Haidai, head of the Lugansk regional military administration, said on Telegram.