Zelensky visits frontline town of Pokrovsk

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he visited the eastern frontline town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region.

A video posted by Mr Zelensky showed him visiting troops defending the town from Russian forces situated about 8km away.

"This is a tense area. It is only thanks to the strength of the (Ukrainian) soldiers that the east is not completely occupied by Russia. The enemy gets a response every day," Mr Zelensky wrote in a post on X.

It comes as two children were among 11 people killed when a Russian missile hit a residential building in the northeastern city of Sumy, Ukrainian officials said, while another missile strike left the region's administrative centre without power.

Eighty-nine people, including 11 children, were also injured in the attack on the city late yesterday, Ukraine's state emergency service said via the Telegram messaging app.

The attack on Sumy followed a morning of Russia pounding Ukraine's power grid in what Ukraine said was a "massive" attack with 120 missiles and 90 drones that killed at least seven people.

"Sunday evening for the city of Sumy became hell, a tragedy that Russia brought to our land," Volodymyr Artyukh, the head of the Sumy military administration said in a post on the administration's Telegram messaging channel.

The military administration said another missile hit critical infrastructure, leaving the city without power.

Ukraine's air force said that Russian forces used two Iskander-M ballistic missiles and a Kh-59 guided missile in the overnight attack.

Rescuers and all necessary services continued to work at the scene and psychologists were providing assistance to those affected, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said on Telegram.

More than 400 people were evacuated, the Service added.

Photographs posted on Telegram by State Emergency Service of Ukraine showed firefighters battling a blaze consuming cars and rescuers carrying people out of a building. One image showed a multi-storey building with nearly all windows blown out and its facade damaged.

Sumy regional prosecutors said the attack damaged 90 apartments, 28 cars, two educational institutions and 13 buildings.

Reuters was able to independently verify the location with the outline, position and design of the buildings that match the file and satellite imagery of the area. Reuters was able to confirm the date with corroborating reports of the local prosecutor and emergency services.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes on each other's territory. But thousands have died since early 2022 in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.