Ukraine, Russia trade strikes

Ukraine and Russia both accused each other of deadly strikes on civilians yesterday, as US lawmakers prepared to vote on a $61 billion aid package Kyiv hopes will boost its flagging war effort.

Ukraine's biggest ally Washington has not approved large-scale support for the war-torn country in nearly a year and a half, a delay Kyiv says has halted its battlefield progress and left its civilians vulnerable.

"I believe we will push on and pass it," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said ahead of the vote, slated to take place in the US House of Representatives later yesterday.

Russian strikes killed three people in central and northeast Ukraine, local officials said, while cross-border Ukrainian attacks left three dead in Russia's western Belgorod region, according to the local governor.

A source in Ukraine's defence sector told AFP Kyiv targeted eight Russian regions overnight in a "large-scale" drone strike, which was aimed at "energy infrastructure that feeds Russia's military-industrial complex".

Russia's defence ministry said it had intercepted 50 Ukrainian drones overnight, some of them hundreds of kilometres from the border, including near the capital Moscow.

Kyiv has ramped up strikes on Russian oil and gas facilities in recent months, part of what it calls "fair" retaliation on infrastructure used to fuel Russia's war.