At least two people have been killed and three others wounded in a Russian airstrike outside kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.
A four-year-old boy and his 35-year-old father were killed in Sunday's attack east of the capital. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was a North Korean-made missile.
In a post on X, Zelenskyy offered his condolences to the family of the couple whom he described as “tragically murdered.”
“Three other people were injured, including a 12-year-old boy,” he added.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the attack.
Moscow's overnight attack also included 57 Iranian-made attack drones that were launched across Ukraine, 53 of which were destroyed by air defenses, kyiv's air force said.
Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov also said on Telegram that an “explosion was heard in the city” on Sunday and urged residents to stay in shelters.
A fire also broke out in a cooling tower at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River, a de facto front line that snakes through southern Ukraine, with kyiv and Moscow blaming each other for the incident.
Russia, which took control of the plant shortly after launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022, said later on Sunday that the fire had been extinguished, according to state news agency TASS. Both Moscow and kyiv said there was damage to a cooling tower and other equipment.
While no increase in radiation levels has been detected, Ukraine's interior minister said it was “intensively monitoring” the situation from weather stations near the plant, which is Europe's largest nuclear power station.
Zelensky reiterated his calls to Ukraine's allies for “a comprehensive air shield that can protect all our cities and communities.”
Ukraine confirms Kursk incursion
Sunday's attack in kyiv comes as Ukraine braces for more Russian strikes in retaliation for its recent cross-border incursion into the Kursk region.
kyiv sent hundreds of military personnel backed by armored vehicles, artillery and drones into the Kursk region on Tuesday, according to Russian officials, Ukrainian military officials and media reports.
On Sunday, Zelenskiy said Russia had launched nearly 2,000 cross-border strikes from Kursk against Ukraine’s Sumy region over the summer. “Artillery, mortars, drones. We also recorded missile attacks, and each of those attacks deserves a fair response,” he said.
The day before, he had acknowledged that Ukrainian forces were indeed fighting in Kursk and said the operation was part of kyiv's attempt to restore justice after Russia invaded its country in 2022.
Ukrainian armored vehicles marked with a white triangle, used to identify the equipment Ukraine is using for its offensive in Russia's western Kursk region, were seen crossing the Sumy border region, AFP news agency reporters said.
The kyiv army has launched its incursion into Russia from the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the incursion a “large-scale provocation” by Ukraine, and the head of the Russian military general staff, Valery Gerasimov, vowed to crush it.
Russian authorities have also declared a state of emergency “at the federal level” in Kursk.
On Sunday, Kursk's acting governor, Alexei Smirnov, said at least 15 people were injured in the region's capital, also called Kursk, after debris from a destroyed Ukrainian missile fell on a nine-story residential building.
“Everyone is receiving the necessary medical attention,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
As fighting in the area intensified on Saturday, Russia's state news agency TASS reported that more than 76,000 people had been evacuated.
Ukraine also announced that it has evacuated 20,000 people from the Sumy region.
On Sunday, the Russian military said it had halted Ukraine's advance in several places, attacking soldiers and equipment in areas up to 30 kilometers (20 miles) from their shared border.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that “a tough response from the Russian military will not be long in coming.”
His comments came shortly after Sunday's attack in Kursk.
“We strongly condemn these barbaric terrorist acts aimed at destroying civilian infrastructure and killing and intimidating civilians,” he said.
Zakharova also called on international organisations to condemn them.
“We are sure that the response will be a shameful silence from the relevant structures,” he added.
Meanwhile, Moscow's ally Belarus also said on Saturday it would send more troops to its border with Ukraine, alleging that Ukrainian drones had violated its airspace as part of kyiv's military incursion into the Kursk region.
At a meeting in Minsk, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said: “The Ukrainian armed forces violated all rules of conduct and the airspace of the Republic of Belarus. In the easterly direction, very close to us, in the Kostyukovichi district.”
The spokesman for the State Border Service of Ukraine, Andrii Demchenko, said that “the situation on the border with Belarus has not changed and is fully controlled; no movement of equipment or personnel has been recorded.”
