Russian strikes kill one, injures at least 24 in Kharviv

More than two dozen people have been wounded in Russian attacks on the Ukrainian border city of Kharkiv and one person has been killed in the southern city of Odesa, Ukrainian authorities said.

AFP journalists in Kharkiv saw rescue workers at night hauling panicked civilians from Soviet-era residential buildings hit in the strike, that were surrounded by broken glass and rubble.

"Throughout the evening and night, terrorists attacked our cities and communities. Missiles, drones and glide bombs were used against the Odesa, Kharkiv and Kyiv regions," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.

The air force said Russia had launched five missiles and 92 drones as well as the glide bombs across Ukraine overnight.

Its units downed four missiles and 62 drones, the statement added.

The death toll meanwhile rose from a Russian attack one day earlier on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, doubling to eight, including an infant, the regional governor said.

In Kharkiv, which Russia is increasingly targeting in night-time bombardments, 25 people were wounded in attacks on residential and commercial districts of the city.

Four people were wounded near Kyiv, which had been targeted almost daily over the last month and where AFP journalists heard air raid sirens and at least one explosion echo out over the capital.

In the historic Black Sea city of Odesa, one person was killed and nine others were wounded in an attack that damaged residential buildings, authorities said.

The latest night of deadly strikes comes at a critical moment of the war - launched by Russia nearly three years ago.

Ukrainian forces are losing ground in the east of the country and concerns are mounting in Kyiv over the future of foreign military aid after the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election.

Zaporizhzhia city, where authorities said more than 40 people had been wounded in yesterday's strike, has also come under increasing Russian aerial bombardments in recent weeks.

Six people were killed in a strike on an industrial sector of the city earlier this week.

In late 2022, Russia claimed to have annexed the wider Zaporizhzhia region, alongside the Donetsk region where Russian forces are advancing rapidly, despite not having full military control over them.

Russian officials in occupied Ukrainian territory in Donetsk meanwhile said that Ukrainian drones had killed two employees of a utilities company.

In late 2022, Russia claimed to have annexed the wider Zaporizhzhia region, alongside the Donetsk region where Russian forces are advancing rapidly, despite not having full military control over them.

Ukraine receives bodies of 563 soldiers from Russia

Ukraine said it received the bodies of 563 soldiers from Russian authorities, mainly troops that died in combat in the eastern Donetsk region.

The exchange of prisoners and bodies of killed military personnel remains one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv since Russia invaded in 2022.

"The bodies of 563 fallen Ukrainian defenders were returned to Ukraine," the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement on social media.

The announcement represents one of the largest repatriations of killed Ukrainian servicemen since the beginning of the war.

The statement said that 320 of the remains were returned from the Donetsk region and that 89 of the soldiers were killed near Bakhmut, a town captured by Russia in May last year after a costly battle.

Another 154 of the bodies were returned from morgues inside Russia, the statement added.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine publicly disclose how many military personnel have been killed fighting.

Ukrainian drone strikes oil refinery in Russia

An overnight Ukrainian drone attack struck an oil refinery in the Russian city of Saratov but caused no significant damage, a local source said.

The source told Reuters the plant was hit but was almost unharmed.

"An inspection was performed - luckily, there was no fire, casualties or critical damage," the source said, adding that refining operations would not be affected.

Video published on social media appeared to show key facilities at the site were intact.

A Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters the strike had caused damage but did not elaborate on the nature and extent of it.

The source said the operation had been conducted by Ukraine's military intelligence agency.

Ukraine has frequently targeted Russian refineries in the course of the war, succeeding at times in knocking out a significant part of capacity.

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Saratov regional governor Roman Busargin said debris from a destroyed zone had fallen on an industrial zone of the city, and nobody appeared to have been hurt.

The Saratov refinery processed 115,400 barrels per day in the first nine months of 2024 versus 101,200 in 2023.

The plant produces motor fuels, vacuum gasoil, fuel oil and bitumen.

A major airbase housing long-range strategic bombers is also located less than 16 kilometres outside Saratov and has been targeted by Ukraine in the past.

Two Russian soldiers sentenced to life in prison for mass murder

A Russian court sentenced two soldiers to life in prison for the massacre of a family of nine people in their home in occupied Ukraine, state media reported.

Russian prosecutors said in October 2023, the two Russian soldiers, Anton Sopov and Stanislav Rau, entered the home of the Kapkanets family in the city of Volnovakha with guns equipped with silencers.

They then shot all nine family members who lived there, including two children aged five and nine.

The southern district military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced the two men to life in prison for mass murder "motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred", the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement source.

The incident triggered uproar in Ukraine.

Ukraine alleged at the time that the Russian soldiers had murdered the family in their sleep after they refused to move out of their home to allow Russian soldiers to live there.

"The occupiers killed the Kapkanets family, who were celebrating a birthday and refused to give up their home," Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said a day after the murder.

Russian forces seized the city of Volnovakha in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region at the start of their full-scale military offensive.

It was virtually destroyed by Russian artillery strikes.

Russian soldiers have been accused of multiple instances of killing civilians in Ukrainian towns and cities they have occupied since February 2022.

Moscow has always denied targeting civilians and tried to claim reports of atrocities at places like Bucha were fake, despite widespread evidence from multiple independent sources.

The arrest and sentencing is a rare example of Russia admitting to a crime committed by its troops in Ukraine.

State media did not say what prosecutors determined the reason for the attack was.

TASS suggested it could have been a "domestic dispute," while both the independent Radio Free Europe and Kommersant business outlets said it could have been linked to a dispute over obtaining vodka.

The trial was held in secret.

The independent Radio Free Europe outlet reported the Rau, 28, and Sopov, 21 were mercenaries for the Wagner paramilitary before joining Russia's official army.

They had both received state awards a few months before the mass murder, it said.