A Russian missile strike on the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih has killed at least six people, including a ten-year-old girl and her mother, and wounded dozens of others, Ukrainian officials said.
A video posted by President Volodymyr Zelensky showed smoke billowing from a gaping hole smashed in the side of a nine-storey residential building and another four-storey building almost levelled.
"It's already six dead in Kryvyi Rih," regional governor Serhiy Lysak wrote on Telegram, announcing a day of mourning in the city. Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said a ten-year-old girl and her 45-year-old mother were among the dead.
A city resident said two missiles flew over her home just before 9 am and she rushed to the scene of the impact after her friend who lives nearby called her.
"What we saw was pure horror, committed by the Russians... They hit a residential building, and her block is just next to it, so everything in their flat was ruined," she said.
Mr Lysak said 75 people had been wounded, including six children aged from four to 17 years old.
Nearly 150 of the building's residents managed to get out by themselves and 30 were helped out by rescuers, he added.
"Think about it, how many people!!! And they launched a missile at them," he said.
Vasyl, a resident whose home was damaged in the strike, said he had moved to Kryvyi Rih from the frontline region of Kherson in the south.
"I don't know how I'll fix the windows. I'm an internally displaced person from Kherson region, and I came here, and the same things are starting to happen."
President Zelensky, who grew up in the steel-producing city with a pre-war population of more than 600,000, said the strikes had hit a residential building and a university building.
"This terror will not frighten us or break us. We are working and saving our people," he said on Telegram.
More than 350 rescuers were involved in an operation to save people trapped under the rubble, Mr Zelensky said.
Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said the attack appeared to have been carried out with ballistic missiles.
"This is already a kind of genocidal everyday reality... Kryvyi Rih," President Zelensky's adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"International law will never work if the aggressor does not see a real power behind it. The power begins with closing the Ukrainian skies with missile defence and air defence systems," he said.
The West has supplied sophisticated air defence systems that have largely protected places like the capital Kyiv from wave after wave of attacks.
The sheer size of Ukraine makes it hard to ensure the same level of defences across the country, and ballistic missiles are also particularly difficult to shoot down.
Kherson, now a frontline city in southern Ukraine after being liberated from Russian forces in November, was struck at least twice.
An early morning rocket attack killed a 60-year-old utility worker and wounded four others as they were out on the street doing their jobs, the regional military administration said.
A 65-year-old man driving his car was badly wounded in the second strike and died as an acquaintance tried to rush him to hospital, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram.
The regional prosecutor's office said that at least ten civilians were wounded.
Kherson, now a frontline city in southern Ukraine after being liberated from Russian forces in November, was struck at least twice.
An early morning rocket attack killed a 60-year-old utility worker and wounded four others as they were out on the street doing their jobs, the regional military administration said.
A 65-year-old man driving his car was badly wounded in the second strike and died as a friend tried to rush him to hospital, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
Ukraine to start talks with US on security guarantees
Ukraine is to start consultations with the United States this week on providing security guarantees for Kyiv pending the completion of the process of joining NATO, President Zelensky's chief of staff said.
Andriy Yermak, writing on Telegram, also said officials from a number of countries were preparing to meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss Mr Zelensky's peace plan for Ukraine, based on the departure of all Russian troops.
Mr Yermak did not say when the next meeting would take place but said the plan would be discussed in three phases, leading up to a meeting of heads of state and government.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the meeting in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, saying it would be held in Jeddah on 5-6 August.
The talks on security guarantees with the US are a follow-up on pledges issued by the Group of 7 (G7) at the NATO summit in Lithuania earlier this month to draw up and honour security guarantees.
"We are starting talks with the United States (this) week," Mr Yermak wrote on Telegram.
"Security guarantees for Ukraine will be concrete, long-term obligations ensuring Ukraine's capacity to defeat and restrain Russian aggression in the future. These will be clearly drafted formats and mechanisms of support."
He said the guarantees "will be in effect until Ukraine secures NATO membership."
The Western Alliance's Vilnius summit offered support to Ukraine in countering Russia's 17-month-old invasion and individual countries pledged new weapons, but no date for Ukrainian membership was set as long as the war continues.
Members of the G7 agreed for each nation to negotiate agreements to provide security guarantees and help Ukraine bolster its military.
In his comments, Mr Yermak said more than ten other countries had joined the G7 declaration and Ukraine was negotiating terms of future guarantees with each of them.
Mr Yermak spoke of the forthcoming meeting in Saudi Arabia at a gathering of regional officials in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano Frankivsk.
He said an initial international meeting devoted to the peace plan took place in Copenhagen in June.
In addition to calling for a withdrawal of Russian troops, Mr Zelensky's peace plan also provides for the restoration of Ukraine's pre-war borders and the return home of all prisoners and deported children.
Russia and Ukraine held a series of peace talks soon after Russia's invasion in February 2022, but these failed to produce any agreement.
Ukraine, its military now bolstered by Western arms, now says it will not take part in any further talks until Russian troops leave.
Ukraine reports fierce fighting in northeast
On the battlefield, a senior Ukrainian official reported heavy fighting in the northeast of the country yesterday, with Kyiv's forces holding their lines and making gains in some areas.
Russia's military said it had halted Ukrainian forces in the northeast. The military also said it brought down three Ukrainian drones which had tried to strike Moscow and damaged a high-rise building reported to house government offices.
Mr Zelensky described yesterday as "a good day, a powerful day" at the front, particularly near Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces say they are retaking ground lost when Russian forces took the city in May.
Ukraine did not directly claim responsibility for the drone attacks but Mr Zelensky said the war was "gradually returning to Russia's territory - to its symbolic centres".
Russian forces launched the latest in a series of night-time air attacks, striking what officials said was a "non-residential building" in the northeastern city of Kharkiv. The hit started a fire but there were no reports of casualties.
Mr Zelensky reported that the death toll in a Russian strike on a school in the northern town of Sumy on Saturday had risen to two after rescue teams cleared rubble from the site.
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Russian forces were "trying to drive us out" of elevated positions in the northeast occupied by Moscow after its February 2022 invasion, but retaken later by Ukrainian troops.
The Russians' key task, she told national television, was to "divert our forces from the Bakhmut area, where we have a successful offensive".
"They have attacked endlessly this week. But our troops resist the attacks and sometimes push them back with heavy losses," she said.
Ms Maliar said the Russians had suffered "no fewer losses than during the heated battles in Bakhmut", which fell to Russian forces after more than ten months of fighting.
Prigozhin says Wagner is not recruiting
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a voice message published today that his Wagner group was not currently recruiting fighters but was likely to do so in future.
The future of Wagner and Mr Prigozhin has been unclear since he led a short mutiny against the Russian defence establishment in late June and the Kremlin said he and some of his fighters - who have fought in some of the fiercest battles of the Ukraine war - would leave for Belarus.
Despite that, Mr Prigozhin attended a meeting with Mr Putin five days after the mutiny and was photographed last week in St Petersburg, where President Vladimir Putin was hosting African leaders.
"Today we are defining our next tasks, whose outline is becoming clearer and clearer. Undoubtedly, these are tasks that will be carried out in the name of the greatness of Russia," a voice sounding like Mr Prigozhin's said in the message. It was published on Grey Zone, a Telegram channel affiliated with Wagner.
After the June mutiny, the Kremlin said Wagner fighters who had not taken part would transfer to the regular army, signing contracts with the Defence Ministry.
Apparently alluding to this, Mr Prigozhin said in the voice message that "unfortunately" some of his fighters had moved to other "power structures", but he said they were looking to return.
"As long as we don't experience a shortage in personnel, we don't plan to carry out a new recruitment," Mr Prigozhin said.
"However, we will be extremely grateful to you if you keep in touch with us, and as soon as the Motherland needs to create a new group that will be able to protect the interests of our country, we will certainly start recruiting."
Since the mutiny, some Wagner fighters have moved to Belarus and started training its army. In comments published last week, Mr Prigozhin also said Wagner was ready to further increase its presence in Africa.
Its role there, especially in support of governments in Mali and Central African Republic, is a source of concern for Western governments. The United States has accused it of committing widespread atrocities and imposed sanctions on it as a criminal organisation.
Mr Prigozhin says it works in line with the laws of the countries where it operates. Last week he welcomed a military coup in the west African state of Niger and made what appeared to be a pitch for his fighters to bring order there.
