Russian forces have gained a "foothold" in the village of Ocheretyne, with a prewar population of 3,000, Ukraine's military said, noting that fierce fighting continues in the area as Ukrainian forces struggle to repel the Russians in Ukraine's Eastern Donetsk region.
Russian troops have been barraging Kyiv's ammunition-depleted forces with artillery, drones and bombs.
Drone footage obtained by The Associated Press shows Ocheretyne obliterated by Russian strikes, with not a single building in the village untouched after the attacks.
Ukraine's Kharkiv and Dnipro regions also were hit by Russian drones overnight. At least six people were injured, including a 13-year-old child, when the drones struck commercial and residential buildings, regional officials said Saturday.
While the Ukrainian Air Force said it downed all 13 Shahed drones targeting the regions, the debris from the falling drones in Ukraine's second largest city of Kharkiv struck civilian targets, injured four people and caused a fire in an office building that has been brought under control, the regional governor, Oleh Synehubov, said in a post on the Telegram app.
Russian state news agency RIA reported Saturday that Russian forces targeted a drone warehouse overnight in Kharkiv that it said had been used by Ukrainian troops. The state media cited Sergei Lebedev, a self-described coordinator of local pro-Moscow guerrillas.
His comments could not be independently verified, AP said.
In the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region, two people were wounded, according to regional governor Serhiy Lysak, who said a critical infrastructure facility and three houses were damaged.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday its air defense forces shot down four U.S.-produced long-range missiles known by the acronym ATACMS over the Crimean Peninsula. The ministry said that in the past week it has downed 15 ATACMS.
The United States has quietly shipped the long-range missiles to Ukraine in recent weeks.
During a press briefing 10 days ago, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed that a "significant number" of the missiles had been sent to Ukraine and added "we will send more."
Sullivan said Ukraine committed to using the weapons only inside Ukraine, not in Russia. He said the missiles used for the first time in the early hours of April 17, however, were deployed against a Russian airfield in Crimea, about 165 kilometers from the Ukrainian front lines.
The U.S. official added that initially the Pentagon was reluctant to send the ATACMS, fearing Ukraine would fire inside Russia, leading to an escalation of tensions between the Kremlin and Washington.
Nevertheless, Sullivan noted, Russia's use of North Korean-supplied long-range ballistic missiles against Ukraine last December and January, despite U.S. public and private warnings not to do so, led to a change of heart.
Meanwhile, Russia is lashing out at NATO's four-month-long military exercises, known as Steadfast Defender. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in statement Saturday that NATO's exercises close to Russia's borders are proof that the Western alliance is preparing for a potential conflict with Russia.
Zakharova dismissed NATO accusations that Russia is engaged in hybrid attacks on NATO member states, calling them misinformation aimed at distracting people from the alliance's activities.
The Kremlin also criticized as dangerous some comments by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and French President Emmanuel Macron that indicated their countries' direct involvement in Ukraine's war against Russia.
"This is a direct escalation of tension around the Ukrainian conflict, which could potentially pose a danger to European security, to the entire European security architecture," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday at a press briefing.
During a visit to Kyiv, Cameron told Reuters that Ukraine has the right to strike in self-defense. "Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it's defending itself," he said.
Cameron promised $3.7 billion of annual military aid for Ukraine for "as long as it takes" on Thursday, adding that London had no objection to its weapons being used inside Russia.
In a separate interview Thursday, Macron repeated an earlier comment of his that he doesn't exclude sending troops to Ukraine, an act, Russia said, that would lead to a direct and dangerous escalation of tensions around the conflict.
On Saturday, Russia put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on a wanted list, according to Russian state news agency TASS, citing the Interior Ministry's database without providing any further details.
Russia has issued arrest warrants for Ukrainian and other European politicians since the beginning of its invasion on Ukraine in 2022.
Among them are Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Lithuania's culture minister, as well as members of the previous Latvian parliament, for destroying Soviet-era monuments.
Russia also issued an arrest warrant for the International Criminal Court prosecutor who issued a warrant last year for Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges.
Some information for this report was provided by Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
