Russia launched drones and missiles Ukraine as people packed churches to celebrate the Orthodox Easter.
Two people were killed and more than a dozen injured, including a child, in weekend attacks in the east of the country.
On Saturday night, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that it destroyed 23 of 24 Russian drones fired at Kharkiv, Kherson and the Dnepropetrovsk region.
Earlier in the day, President Volodymr Zelensky said Ukraine had shot down another Russian fighter jet.
Analysts warn that Russia is intensifying its offensive across Ukraine before US weapons reach Ukrainian frontline forces.
Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and Russia were celebrating Easter when the attacks hit towns and cities.
“In Pokrovsk, rocket attacks killed two people and damaged a house,” reported Vadim Filashkin, Ukrainian governor of Donetsk.
Ihor Terekhov, mayor of Kharkiv, said: “A missile hit the central part of the city, in the residential area. There are currently at least five people injured.”
Russian authorities have begun describing Kharkiv, which has a population of nearly 2 million people, as a serious target. It is the first time they have done so since September 2022, when a Ukrainian counterattack forced the Russian army to retreat.
Last month, a Russian missile destroyed Kharkiv’s television tower as part of a series of increasingly intense attacks.
Russia has made gains in recent weeks, pushing back Ukraine’s outnumbered and outgunned forces. On Sunday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had captured the village of Ocheretino, a few kilometers west of Avdiivka, a town Russia captured earlier this year.
Western analysts stated that the capture of Ocheretino was part of Russia’s consolidation of control along a section of the front line and that its strategic importance was limited. More important is the battle for Chasiv Yar, a city built on high ground that defends a handful of other cities in the valleys below. There, sources said Ukrainian forces continued to defend themselves against waves of near-suicidal Russian attacks.
The British Ministry of Defense stated that the Russian army has already suffered 465,000 casualties, killed or injured, in more than two years of war. This is approximately the population of Liverpool.
However, he said Russia could absorb the high casualty rate amid the Kremlin’s plans to reorient society and the economy to fuel its war machine.
“Despite the extreme cost in lives, Russia has fully adapted its armed forces to war of attrition that relies on mass over quality,” he said at his daily security briefing.
Ukrainian generals have reported that the situation along the front line is dire, but Jake Sullivan, the US national security advisor, told the FT that Ukraine will be able to counter Russian attacks with a resupply of weapons and even if prepare for a new counteroffensive next time. year.
In April, after a delay of several months, US lawmakers approved £48 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
