Ukraine has issued an evacuation order for children in five settlements on the frontline as it said that its forces had pushed deeper into Russian defensive lines near Robotyne, a day after claiming control over the village on the southern front.
"Due to the difficult security situation and enemy shelling, 54 children and 67 accompanying persons will be forcibly evacuated" from the villages in the Zaporizhzhia region, the ministry responsible for reintegrating Russian-occupied territories said on social media.
Ukraine launched a grinding counteroffensive in June after stockpiling Western-supplied weapons and building up assault battalions, but progress has been slow.
Military spokesman Andriy Kovalyov said Ukrainian forces were edging further in the Zaporizhzhia region, which Moscow claims is part of Russia.
"Ukrainian forces had successes in the direction of Novodanylivka to Verbove," he told state media, naming two hamlets in the war-battered region.
He added that the troops were holding captured territory and attacking Russian artillery.
Ukrainian forces have also been trying to surround the eastern town of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian forces in May.
The Russian-installed head of the Donetsk region, where Bakhmut is located, played down the Ukrainian push, after Kyiv claimed successes.
"The flanks are being held. The situation there is already stabilising," Denis Pushilin told Russian state media.
In the nearby Russian-controlled town of Gorlivka, its Moscow-aligned mayor said Ukrainian shelling had killed three civilians.
Ivan Prikhodko described the fatal shelling on a milk production facility as "horrifying".
Compared to Ukrainian offensives last year in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions, this time Kyiv's forces are crashing into Russian defensive lines of trenches and minefields that are kilometres deep.
But analysts say the capture of Robotyne is evidence that Ukrainian forces can puncture Russian lines as they push south.
The Ukrainian ministry responsible for reintegrating occupied territories said the 121 children and people accompanying them will be removed from the villages of Guliaipole, Stepnogirsk, Preobrazhenka, Yegorivka, and Novopavlivka.
The ministry also said that the remains of 84 killed Ukrainian soldiers had been recovered from Russia.
"After identification, the bodies of our defenders will be handed over to their relatives for a dignified burial," it said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, paid tribute to fallen soldiers on Ukraine's remembrance day.
"Words are never enough to express what we feel," he said in a statement, describing the those who were killed as people "whose lives became the life of Ukraine".
Hundreds of Ukrainians attended a church ceremony in Kyiv today to pay their last respects to a celebrated fighter pilot with the callsign Juice who was killed in an air disaster during training.
The death of Andriy Pilshchykov, 30, a poster boy for Ukraine's air force, is seen as a bitter blow for Ukraine's military as it battles Russia.
US provides more military aid to Ukraine
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced a new package of military assistance to aid Ukraine.
It includes additional mine clearing equipment, missiles for air defence, ammunition for artillery and high bar systems, and over three million rounds of small arms ammunition, Mr Blinken said in a statement.
The package is valued at $250 million (€230m)
Over 1,000 schools destroyed in Ukraine since war began
More than 1,300 schools have been totally destroyed in government-held areas of Ukraine since Russia's 2022 invasion and others have been badly damaged, the UN children's fund UNICEF has said.
Persistent attacks mean that only about a third of school-age children there are attending classes fully in person and many are forgetting what they have already learned, it said.
Beyond Ukraine, more than half of the children whose families have fled the conflict to seven countries are not enrolled in national education, UNICEF said, citing language barriers and overstretched education systems.
Some schools have suffered direct hits and others have closed down as a precaution in 18 months of missile and artillery attacks on residential areas across the country.
"Inside Ukraine, attacks on schools have continued unabated, leaving children deeply distressed and without safe spaces to learn," it said.
The war followed Covid-19 disruptions, meaning some Ukrainian children were facing a fourth consecutive school year of disruptions as they return to classes this week after the summer break, UNICEF said.
"Not only has this left Ukraine's children struggling to progress in their education, but they are also struggling to retain what they learnt when their schools were fully functioning," said Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia.
Around half of Ukraine's teachers have reported a deterioration in students' abilities in language, reading and mathematics, it said, and they have missed out on the sense of safety and friendships school can provide to those enduring war.
