Moscow hit Ukraine with what was described as the biggest aerial bombardment of the war on Friday.
ADVERTISEMENTRussia launched a fresh drone assault on Ukraine on Saturday night, after vowing that strikes on the Russian border city of Belgorod earlier in the day “would not go unpunished”.
The Ukrainian Air Force said on Sunday it had shot down 21 of 49 drones launched by Russian forces overnight.
Twenty-eight people were wounded in an attack on the eastern city of Kharkiv, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Sunday.
A central hotel, apartment buildings, kindergarten, shops and administrative buildings sustained damage, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
In the Kyiv region, a Russian drone attack caused a fire at a critical infrastructure facility, local officials said. They did not identify the facility further.
The Russian attacks came after shelling in the centre of the Russian border city of Belgorod on Saturday killed 24 people, including three children.
A further 108 people were wounded in the strike, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Sunday.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on Russian soil since the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine 22 months ago.
Russian authorities accused Kyiv of carrying out the attack, which took place the day after an 18-hour Russian aerial bombardment across Ukraine killed at least 41 civilians.
“This crime will not go unpunished,” the ministry said in a statement on social media.
In an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council called by Moscow on Saturday night, Russia's UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya accused Kyiv of a “terrorist attack.”
In comments carried by Russian state media, he claimed Ukraine had launched “a deliberate act of terrorism directed against civilians.”