A Russian plane-launched missile struck a Ukrainian supermarket, killing at least 10 people and injuring 35 others, authorities said.
The shopping mall in Kostiantynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, is in the town’s residential area. Thick black smoke rose above it after the strike.
Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin said in a Telegram post: “This is another targeted attack on a crowded place, another act of terror by the Russians.”
“There are people under the rubble. A rescue operation is under way and everything will be done to save them,” president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on X.
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Images from the site shared alongside Mr Filashkin’s post on Telegram showed heavy black smoke clouds rising from the destroyed building.
“The strike on the supermarket in Kostiantynivka is yet another act of Russian terror. War against civilians is all they know,” Ukraine presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on X.
Emergency services continued rescue operation, the governor added.
Moscow’s forces hold large areas of the Donetsk region. Ukrainian-held areas regularly come under Russian shelling and air strikes.
The region is one of the most intense areas of fighting as Russia targets areas in the direction of the strategic eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
Elsewhere, Russian officials have declared the situation in the Kursk region a “federal level” emergency, four days after hundreds of Ukrainian troops poured over the border in what appears to be Kyiv’s biggest attack on Russian soil since the war began.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has made clear he wants to capture the parts of Donetsk that the Kremlin’s forces do not already occupy.
Russia declares federal level emergencies when there are more than 500 victims or damage exceeds 500 million roubles (€5.4 million).
A Russian defence ministry said only that the military “continues to repel the attempted invasion” and is responding with air strikes, artillery and troops on the ground.
Kursk acting governor Alexei Smirnov said on Telegram: “The operational situation in the Kursk region remains difficult.”
Social services and civic associations are providing assistance to people forced to flee their homes by the fighting, he said. The last Russian figure for evacuations in Kursk was 3,000.
Little reliable information about the surprise Ukrainian operation has emerged, and its strategic aims are unclear.
Ukrainian officials have refused to comment specifically about the incursion, which is taking place about 514km southwest of Moscow.
Ukraine has also kept up its strategy of hitting rear areas with long-range drones, targeting military sites, oil refineries and other infrastructure.
Ukrainian drones attacked Russia’s Lipetsk region, which is about 290km from the Ukraine border, during Thursday night, authorities said.
The regional emergencies ministry in Lipetsk said there was a fire at a military airfield where fighter planes including MiG-29s and Su-34s reportedly are based.
Lipetsk governor Igor Artamonov said that unspecified electrical infrastructure was damaged and nine people were wounded in the attack.
The Russian defence ministry said that 75 Ukrainian drones were shot down during the night, 19 of them over Lipetsk. – Agencies