A 50-year-old man and his 11-year-old daughter were among at least five killed in weekend shelling by Russian forces in northeastern and southern regions of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials.
The father and daughter were killed in a Russian military strike overnight in the city of Zaporizhzhya in southeastern Ukraine as Russia’s military offensive in the east showed no signs of a letup.
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The Ukrainian State Emergency Service also reported that a 46-year-old woman, who it described as the wife and mother of the victims, was pulled from the wreckage.
Anatoliy Kurtev, the city council secretary, said one home was destroyed and several nearby buildings were damaged when two Russian missiles struck in the attack.
"The cursed Russian terrorists attacked Zaporizhzhya again and lost human lives," he wrote on Telegram.
In the northeastern region of Kharkiv, Governor Oleh Synyehubov said two men died on April 9 in shelling in Kupyansk, which remained under attack as Russian forces targeted residential areas with multiple-rocket launchers, Synyehubov said.
The regional governor of Zaporizhzhya said 18 communities were shelled on April 8, killing three people and wounding five. It was unclear whether the governor's assessment included the father and daughter killed in the city of Zaporizhzhya.
Late on April 9, Russian troops attacked the Kherson region with guided air bombs, said regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
The Ukrainian military said the scale of the destruction is being assessed.
"Preliminarily, there are no victims among the civilians of the region," Prokudin said.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on April 9 that it had destroyed a depot containing 70,000 tons of fuel near Zaporizhzhya, as well as Ukrainian military warehouses in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya regions.
The Ukrainian military's operational command in the north said its forces had destroyed a modern Russian radar station used to detect drones. There was no confirmation of the attack from the Russian side, and RFE/RL could not independently verify the claims.
The attacks came as Russian invading forces continued their offensive in eastern Ukraine, with Kyiv’s military reporting its forces had repelled more than 50 attacks over the past day.
WATCH: Rescuers pulled a 46-year-old woman from the rubble early on April 9 after Russian missiles struck the city of Zaporizhzhya. The woman's 11-year-old daughter and 50-year-old husband were killed in the attack.
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Ukrainian Woman Saved After Russian Strike; Her Daughter, Husband Killed
In a statement issued early on April 9, the Ukrainian General Staff said Russia’s military continued to target the country’s industrial east, focusing on the cities and towns of Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiyivka, and Maryinka in the Donetsk region.
According to the General Staff, Russian forces launched 40 air strikes, four missile strikes, and 58 attacks from multiple-rocket launchers on various parts of Ukraine on April 8 and into the first part of April 9.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, has ordered his military to gain complete control of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson, areas he claims Russia has illegally annexed. Ukraine has indicated it will soon launch a counteroffensive to take back more territory.
In his daily address late on April 8, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy noted positive “movement towards NATO,” pointing to new military aid for Ukraine as well as other signs of international support.
WATCH: A charity has brought back 31 Ukrainian children who had been forcibly taken to Russia. The natives of Ukraine's Kherson and Kharkiv regions got off a bus on April 8 in Kyiv and were reunited with their families. The repatriation was arranged by Save Ukraine, an organization helping internally displaced people in Ukraine.
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Charity Retrieves Ukrainian Children From Russia
Zelenskiy referred to Lithuania proposing to invite Ukraine to become a member of NATO at the military alliance's summit in the capital, Vilnius, in July.
The Baltic country's parliament decided this week to seek an invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance at the summit scheduled for July 11-12.
Zelenskiy spoke hours after the head of a Ukrainian rescue organization said it had brought back 31 children from Russia, where they had been taken during the war.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on March 17 for Putin and Russian children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of abducting children from Ukraine.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said this week it had been in contact with Lvova-Belova.
Quoted by the AP news agency, ICRC spokesman Jason Straziuso said the organization was in contact with Lvova-Belova “in line with its mandate to restore contact between separated families and facilitate reunification where feasible.”