Star Metro - Russian strikes kill 7, wound dozens in Dnipro

The strikes 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, Ukrainian political sources told AFP.

Emergency services in the Dnipropetrovsk region, now threatened by Russian battlefield advances, released images of rescuers helping civilians covered in blood.

"While leaders gather in The Hague for the NATO summit, Russia sends a message of terror and rejection of peace. It is a matter of credibility for allies to step up pressure on Moscow," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said in response.

The regional governor Sergiy Lysak said as well as seven dead in Dnipro, two more people were killed in the nearby town of Samar while nine were wounded there.

"This is probably one of the most brazen strikes against Dnipro since the start of the full-scale war," Dnipro's mayor Borys Filatov said.

Russian forces, which invaded Ukraine just over three years ago, are advancing towards the border of Dnipropetrovsk, hoping to gain a foothold there for the first time of the war.

The attacks on Dnipro city, which damaged schools and medical facilities as well as a passenger train, 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 day earlier, Russia attacked the capital, Kyiv, leaving ten people dead and ripped open a residential building.

- Drone attack on Moscow -

Russia said a drone had targeted a residential building in Moscow overnight, wounding two people, including a pregnant woman.

"About 100 people were evacuated from the building, including 30 children," according to the region's governor, Andrei Vorobyov, who added that two more drones were shot down.

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 a peace deal in order to prolong its full-scale offensive and to seize more territory.

V.Watson--SMC