KYIV: At least 20 people were injured after an alleged Russian strike in Ukraine’s central Dnipro city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared a video showing rescuers searching the debris of a two-storey building.
Another official said that five of the victims were children and that a man had been pulled from the debris, the BBC said.
Explosions were also heard over the capital, Kyiv, where air defence systems had again been deployed. All of Ukraine had been placed under air raid alerts.
Zelensky described the blast in Dnipro as a deliberate Russian attack, although Russia has denied targeting civilians during its strikes of the neighbouring country.
Fires broke out after the strike in a northern district of the city, according to regional governor Serhiy Lysak who claimed that five children were among the victims.
He said seventeen of the 20 people injured in the strike were taken to hospital.
Explosions were reported in other parts of the country. Air defence systems were alerted early Sunday to repel air attacks near Kyiv, the Ukrainian military administration said on social media platform Telegram.
Officials in the northern Sumy region recorded 87 blasts due to Russian shelling, speaking of injuries and destruction of infrastructure.
Though details were scant, more than a dozen explosions were also reported in the Russian-occupied southern cities of Berdyansk and Melitopol.
In Russia, officials said earlier on Saturday that two more people were killed in fresh attacks in the border region of Belgorod.
Local authorities said that Ukraine was to blame, although Ukraine said the deaths resulted from Russia attempting to target fighters who oppose the Kremlin.
There had been a spate of attacks in the region in recent weeks, notably including a major cross-border incursion late last month which Moscow said ended in the deaths of 70 attackers.
