One dead as Russian rockets hit Ukrainian city

Seven rockets were fired into residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia before dawn on Thursday, killing at least one person, as Russia increased its attacks on Ukrainian cities amid losses by its troops on the battlefield.

The Zaporizhzhia regional administration released videos showing rescue workers at the scene, with some people still believed to be under the rubble, which caused the strike to flatten an apartment building. Anatoliy Kuratyev, the city's mayor, said 21 people had been saved, including a three-year-old girl.

There were reports of more explosions in the city in the mid-morning local time. Kuratyev said Russia had hit an infrastructure object without specifying the nature of the target.

The city close to Europe's largest nuclear power plant has suffered several fatal attacks in the last week, according to Zaporizhzhia. On Friday, 30 people died and 88 were injured when a rocket hit the city. The victims were waiting in a queue on the outskirts of the city to enter the occupied territories and others were waiting at a bus stop.

Five other Ukrainian cities were hit on Thursday, in addition to civilian areas in the Kherson, Dontesk and Luhansk regions close to the fighting.

Russia launched two rockets at the central Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi, but both failed their targets.

Russia used what the Ukrainian authorities say are Iranian-supplied kamikaze drones to target the cities of Odesa, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. Ukraine s military said they managed to shoot down 18 additional drones before they reached Odesa and Mykolaiv.

Iranian drones can stay airborne for several hours and circle over potential targets before being flown into enemy troops, armour or buildings and explode on impact.

Despite Ukraine s authorities insisting that civilians evacuate frontline areas, there are still people living along the contact line, a mixture of the elderly and people who say they can't afford to restart elsewhere. The deputy head of Ukraine's presidential administration, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said 14 of the 20 civilians killed in the last 24 hours were living in Ukrainian-controlled areas of the Donetsk region.

Ukraine has continued to advance both in the east and south, and Russian troops have been retreating under pressure on both fronts.

Russia s president, Vladimir Putin, appeared to admit serious losses on Wednesday in a televised call with teachers, saying that the Kremlin was working on the assumption that the situation in the new territories will stabilise. Military analysts say Russia is at its weakest point, having lost mass of equipment and men and is unlikely to regain any ground unless its mobilisation proves a success.

The British Ministry of Defence said on Thursday Russia was facing a dilemma in Kherson, the only region where they have managed to acquire a regional centre since February, Kherson city.

Russia faces a dilemma: withdrawal of combat forces across the Dnipro makes defence of the rest of Kherson oblast more tenable, but the political imperative will be to remain and defend, read the ministry's statement.

Russian-installed officials in Kherson region have announced that children in the occupied area will be sent to Crimea, the southern peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, for two weeks for an autumn camp because of the security situation.

Educational events, exciting trips and meetings with interesting people await the children, according to the announcement. This may be an attempt by the Russian authorities to shield children from the rapidly moving frontlines, but it follows a pattern of Russia trying to immerse Ukrainian children living in the occupied areas in their propaganda narratives.

Russia has also taken Ukrainian orphans to Russia in the occupied areas, which Ukraine s authorities have described as kidnapping.