Russian shelling of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on September 7 killed five people, regional authorities said.
Three men between the ages of 24 and 69 were killed in the town of Kostyantynivka, Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram. Four people were injured, he said.
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Two men in their 50s were reported killed in shelling near the town of Toretsk about 20 kilometers to the southeast of Kostyantynivka.
Public broadcaster Suspilne quoted Anastasia Medvedeva, a spokeswoman for the Donetsk Prosecutor-General's Office, as saying a fourth person was injured in the attack on Kostyantynivka -- a 57-year-old woman who suffered a shrapnel wound and a head injury.
Medvedeva said the two people killed in Toretsk were men ages 52 and 53.
The city of Khariv also was shelled late on September 7, the regional Prosecutor-General’s Office said. The grounds of a private business and nine vehicles were damaged, and a 61-year-old security guard was injured.
A residential building caught fire and 10 private houses were damaged in the village of Mala Danylivka in the Kharkiv region. Four people were injured -- three women and a man.
Earlier on September 7, a large fire at an arms depot prompted local authorities to evacuate some 600 people in southwest Russia’s Voronezh region.
Governor Aleksandr Gusev said on Telegram that the fire in the region’s Ostrogoz district was caused by debris from a drone. Gusev said nearby residents of several settlements were evacuated to safety and that no injuries were reported.
Videos showing a large fire and in which explosions can clearly be heard were posted on social media sites.
The Russian Defense Ministry, while reporting that Ukrainian drones had been shot down over Russia’s southwestern Belgorod and Kursk regions, made no mention of any drone attacks in the Voronezh region.
Gusev in late August announced the evacuation of about 600 residents of the Voronezh region’s Ostrogoz district after claimed downings of drones led to fires and the detonation of explosives that lasted almost two days.
In Ukraine, the air force reported on September 7 that air defenses were scrambled across the country to defend against a massive overnight drone attack by Russia. The air force said 67 long-range drones were shot down.
On the evening of September 6, one person was reported killed in the southeastern city of Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region as the result of missile strikes, and that 64 people were injured in the region.
Russian forces were also continuing to push toward the strategic city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine's Donetsk region, where RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service captured footage from near the front line that showed the village of Novohrodivka ablaze.
The Russian Defense Ministry on September 7 said that its forces had seized the village of Kalynove, which lies just 25 kilometers southeast of Pokrovsk, a key supply and logistics hub for Ukraine’s frontline troops.
Russia has been advancing on Pokrovsk for months, prompting an evacuation of the city, as part of Russia’s objective of taking all of the Donbas region. Russia has also pounded Ukraine across the country with missile and drone strikes, including one on a military facility in the central city of Poltava on September 3 that killed at least 55 people and wounded more than 300.
Funeral services for the victims took place on September 7 in a solemn ceremony.
A major Russian strike on September 4, just one day after the Poltova attack, killed seven people in the western city of Lviv.
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Lviv Residents Mourn Mother, 3 Daughters Killed In Russian Attack
Ukraine, meanwhile, has seized more than 1,300 square kilometers and claims to have killed or wounded about 6,000 Russian soldiers in a surprise incursion launched last month into Russia’s western Kursk region.
Ukraine’s top military commander, recently promoted General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said this week that he considered the Kursk incursion a success because it had reduced the threat of Russian attacks. Syrskiy also acknowledged that the situation around Pokrovsk was difficult but that Ukrainian forces had succeed in blunting the Russian offensive there.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on September 6 appealed to allied partners at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany to free Ukraine to use donated weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after the meeting that no single military weapon would be decisive for Ukraine to defeat Russia's full-scale invasion and that the use of donated U.S. weapons for long-range strikes into Russia would not turn the tide of the war in Ukraine's favor.
Austin said Russia had moved its glide bombs back to positions beyond the range of U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and that Ukraine itself had significant capabilities to attack long-range targets.