The Albany Gazette - Five dead in new Russia, Ukraine strikes

The World Health Organization denounced a strike that destroyed a warehouse in Ukraine holding medical supplies.

More than four years after the start of Russia's large-scale offensive against Ukraine, both countries are ramping up long-range strikes. The resulting civilian casualties led the United Nations to condemn both sides last week.

Russia is relying on "ballistic terror," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday on social media, stating that 61 missiles of various types had been fired at Ukraine this week.

"More pressure, more sanctions against Russia and more air defence for Ukraine are needed," he added.

The two people killed by a Russian drone strike were in the major northeastern city of Kharkiv, where four floors of a residential building were also destroyed, said Zelensky.

Twenty-three people were also wounded, according to regional governor Oleg Synegoubov, sharing images of a gutted building with emergency services working at the scene.

Zelensky said eight people had also been wounded overnight in Odesa, where strikes damaged the power grid, the port, and residential buildings.

He condemned another "absolutely brutal" strike targeting energy infrastructure near a shopping centre in Pavlohrad, in the Dnipropetrovsk region that wounded nine people, including four children.

- WHO condemns warehouse strike -

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a WHO warehouse stocking medical supplies in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro had been destroyed in strikes on Friday.

"I cannot say loudly enough: attacks on health care MUST STOP. Otherwise, people are deprived of lifesaving healthcare," Tedros in a post on X Sunday.

"Even wars have rules. One of those is that health must be protected!"

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone attack on the border city of Belgorod killed three people, according to the region's acting governor, Alexander Shuvaev.

Twenty-five people, including children aged four and nine, were also wounded, he added.

Fires broke out in cars, two apartment buildings, and a house, said Shuvaev.

A video released by Russian media shows an apartment building engulfed in flames at night, watched by residents gathered across the street.

On the front line, the Russian army said Sunday they had captured two small villages in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. The claim has not yet been independently verified.

One of them, Vasiutynske, is about 10 kilometres (six miles) from the city of Kramatorsk, a Ukrainian urban and logistical hub.

- Zelensky defends strikes -

Zelensky, in his evening address on Sunday, defended Ukraine's responses to Russia's attacks -- including strikes on oil refineries, air-defence systems and radar stations -- as "truly just responses".

"The Russian war will be increasingly felt at home, in Russia," he said.

On Thursday, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres condemned both sides for their repeated attacks on civilian areas.

"Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are a clear violation of international humanitarian law, and must stop immediately," he said.

The Russian invasion, which began four and a half years ago, continues with prospects of a peace agreement largely stalled.

(B.Smith--TAG)