Star Metro - Russian strikes kill 11 in Ukraine region under pressure

The attacks came as President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the Netherlands to meet with allies on the sidelines of the NATO defence alliance summit.

He is expected to meet with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday to discuss more sanctions on Russia and arms procurement, a senior Ukrainian source told AFP.

Emergency services in the Dnipropetrovsk region, now threatened by Russian battlefield advances, published photos of rescuers helping civilians covered in blood after the attack.

"This is not a fight where it's hard to choose a side. Standing with Ukraine means defending life," Zelensky said after the attack.

Ukraine's foreign minister said the strikes amounted to a "rejection of peace" from Russia, which has rejected US and Ukrainian ceasefire proposals.

"It is a matter of credibility for allies to step up pressure on Moscow," Andriy Sybiga said.

Ukrainian police said 11 residents of Dnipro were killed and two more were left dead in the nearby town of Samar. More than 100 people were wounded, according to a statement.

Police added that an administrative building, shops, educational facilities and a children's hospital were damaged.

- Toddler killed -

Russian forces, which invaded Ukraine just over three years ago, recently claimed to have reached the border of the central industrial Dnipropetrovsk region, to gain a foothold there for the first time of the war.

The attacks on Dnipro city, the region's capital, came just hours after deadly overnight drone attacks.

Three people including a toddler were killed earlier in the northeastern Sumy region that borders Russia during the barrage, local officials said.

Oleg Grygorov, head of the Sumy region's military administration, said a five-year-old boy was pulled from the rubble of a destroyed house.

"The strike took the lives of people from different families. They all lived on the same street. They went to sleep in their homes but the Russian drones interrupted their sleep -- forever," he said.

One man died next to his spouse in a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's western border region of Belgorod, the region's governor said, adding that the woman survived the attack.

Another drone had targeted a residential building in Moscow overnight, wounding two people, including a pregnant woman, the local authorities said.

Russia occupies around a fifth of Ukraine and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions as its own since launching its invasion in 2022 -- in addition to Crimea, which it captured in 2014.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging peace talks to prolong its full-scale offensive and to seize more territory.

O.Lessard--SMC