A 2-year-old girl was killed and 22 other people were injured after a Russian missile hit an area between two residential buildings near the southeastern city of Dnipro on Saturday.
“Overnight, the body of a girl was recovered from under the rubble of a house in the community of Pidhorodnenska,” regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on Sunday. “He just hesitated.”
Among the injured were five other children, he added.
Authorities said the blast partially destroyed a pair of two-story buildings as well as 10 private homes, a store and a gas pipeline.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the war with Russia, now in its 16th month, has killed at least 500 children in Ukraine.
The president said in a statement that “Russian weapons and hatred continue to take and destroy the lives of Ukrainian children every day.”
“Many of them can be famous scholars, artists, sports champions, who contributed to the history of Ukraine,” he said.
Zelenskyy said it was impossible to establish the exact number of children killed because of the ongoing fighting and because some areas were under Russian occupation.
Here are some of the other developments regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine on Sunday, June 4:
Minister of Ukraine in ‘disbelief’ in the state of bomb shelters
Ukrainian Minister for Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin expressed “disbelief” at the state of bomb shelters in the country on Sunday.
Zelenskyy ordered an inspection of all bomb shelters in the country after three people who could not access a shelter in Kyiv were killed in a Russian airstrike on Thursday.
Kamyshin said that of the 1,078 shelters that were checked on the first day, 359 were not prepared and another 122 were locked, while 597 were found to be usable.
“I feel incredulous that half are open and considered ready,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“Yesterday, when we selectively inspected the shelters in the Obolon district of our mayor, the absolute majority of the shelters were closed.”
The inspection will continue, Kamyshin added.
The attack on Belgorod prompted the evacuations
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region described a scene of “combat” between Russian forces and pro-Ukrainian fighters in Novaya Tavolzhanka, which is right on the border with Ukraine.
“A sabotage group has arrived, there is a battle today in Novaya Tavolzhanka,” Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. “I hope they all get destroyed.”
Two people were killed in strikes in Belgorod on Saturday and reports said the shooting continued overnight into Sunday.
“Throughout the night, it was quite restless,” Gladkov said, adding that the districts of Shebekino and Volokonovsky suffered “a lot” of damage and about 4,000 people were evacuated from the area.
Last month, the two districts were the scene of border incursions by two pro-Ukrainian guerrilla groups.
Kyiv denied it was behind the attacks and two Russian groups later claimed responsibility.
But military analysts say the incursions and border attacks could be a prelude to Ukraine’s expected counter-offensive against Russian aggression.
Gladkov also said he was willing to meet with the guerrilla fighters after they offered to exchange prisoners.
“The only thing that prevents me from negotiating with them is that our men are in their hands, they might be dead,” he said on Telegram. “But if they are not, then from 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) to 6:00 pm at the Shebekino car border point. I guarantee safety.”
Russia attacked the Ukrainian airfield
Russian missiles hit a Ukrainian plane near the city of Kropyvnytskyi, Kyiv said on Sunday.
“Six missiles and five attack drones” were launched by Russia, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said on television.
“Unfortunately not all of them were destroyed. Of the six, four were destroyed by air defense and two were hit at the operational airfield near Kropyvnytskyi,” he added.
Drones fell over Crimea
Forces deployed by Russia on the occupied Crimean peninsula shot down five drones and jammed four others, Sergei Aksyonov, the head of the Moscow-backed administration, said on Sunday.
This reportedly caused them to miss their targets.
“There was damage to the windows of several houses in a residential district” from the overnight incident, added Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the administration installed in Moscow.
Russia has an air base near Dzhankoi, which Ukrainian officials say has become Moscow’s largest military base on the peninsula.
Kyiv said air defense systems repelled the attack
Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said that air defense systems repelled a new wave of Russian air attacks on the Ukrainian capital.
“According to preliminary information, not a single air target has reached the capital,” Popko said on the Telegram messaging app early Sunday.
“The air defense destroys everything that approaches the city in their distant paths.”
Air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine for nearly three hours early Sunday, according to the Reuters news agency.
It comes after repeated Russian attacks on Kyiv since May, as Ukraine prepares for a long-awaited counter-offensive.
Award-winning Mariupol film screens in Ukraine
The award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” was screened for the first time in Ukraine.
The film from the Ukrainian port city captures the atrocities and horrors of war. It won the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Some of the Ukrainian medics and first responders featured in the film watched it for the first time in a packed Kyiv movie theater.
The screening hall saw repeated standing ovations, and the audience greeted the civil servants in attendance with tears and hugs.
The journalists behind the film, who spent 20 days documenting life in the city as it came under attack by Russian forces, are reportedly on Moscow’s army hitlist.
More DW coverage
Recent drone attacks and shelling in a Russian border town have forced residents to flee their homes, sowing panic and fear. The Kremlin has played down the attacks, but experts think they reveal Putin’s weaknesses.
Russian wine suppliers face difficulties due to EU sanctions. But Putin’s favorite vintners are trying to import material from Portugal and France through third party countries. DW is investigating.
zc, fb/rs (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)