At least three people have been killed after Russian forces shelled and fired missiles at a series of cities in eastern Ukraine in attacks that left others under the rubble of shattered buildings, Ukrainian officials said.
Two cities close to the front line in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, came under fire.
The city council in Kramatorsk said that a missile hit a section of town used for industry and individual houses, killing two people. Rescuers were combing rubble for another person believed to be trapped beneath it.
Kramatorsk has been the scene of some of the deadliest attacks in the nearly two-year-old war, including a missile strike on the town's train station in April 2022 that killed 63 people.
Russian shells struck a school in the nearby town of Slovyansk, with rescuer teams searching for at least one person trapped underneath piles of debris.
Russian forces have been making slow progress in their drive through Donetsk region, but both towns would be certain targets if they made greater progress along the 1,000km front line.
Further north in the town of Kupiansk, scene of heavy Russian attacks for months, one person was killed when a two-storey house was struck by Russian shells, the governor of Kharkiv region said.
Reuters could not independently verify any of the reports, but they occurred in areas where Russian assaults are frequent.
Russia says it does not deliberately target civilian sites.
Renewed US war aid
US President Joe Biden told Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that he is "confident" the US Congress will renew war aid, but added that without American help Kyiv could lose further territory to Russian advances.
"I spoke with Zelensky this afternoon to let him know that I was confident we're going to get that money," Mr Biden told reporters after attending church in Delaware.
Failure by US politicians to approve new funding for military aid to Kyiv would be "absurd" and "unethical," he said, adding: "I'm going to fight to get them the ammunition they need."
The leaders spoke hours after Russia captured the eastern Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka, a major symbolic victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Avdiivka, now mostly destroyed, had been a symbol of Ukraine's determined resistance to Russian aggression since 2014.
Mr Biden told reporters he is not confident another Ukrainian city won't fall to Russian forces without an infusion of US aid
"I'm not. I'm not. No one can be," he said.
With existing US funding already dried up, former president Donald Trump's allies in the House of Representatives have been stalling $60 billion in military aid.
Mr Trump, the likely republican nominee in the November presidential election, opposes helping Kyiv and recently used his sway to kill a US border reform bill that would have also authorised additional aid to Ukraine.
In a post on Telegram following the phone call, Mr Zelensky said: "I am glad that I can count on the full support of the American president. We also believe in the wise decision of the US Congress."
Read more about the Russian invasion of Ukraine
