At least seven killed in Russian and Ukrainian strikes

Rescue workers are seen at the site of a damaged residential building following a drone strike in Kyiv on September 26, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [AFP]

Russian and Ukrainian strikes killed at least seven people in both countries Saturday, as the war between the neighbours raged well into its fifth year.

Moscow has upped attacks on Ukraine's capital Kyiv, including day-time attacks, as the city prepares for another winter of war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow was "escalating every single day", as cities across the country were hit by night-time attacks.

He said two people were killed in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

Authorities in Sumy said another two people were killed in the north-eastern city close to Russia in an attack that also wounded a child.

Several people were wounded in Kyiv, city authorities said, where a residential building in the Solomianskyi district was hit, a day after daytime strikes on the capital killed seven people.

Anastasiia Grygorovych, a 54-year-old resident of the building, said she was woken up early in the morning "because the window fell on us."

"It's a miracle that we are not injured," she told AFP.

She had already fled her home-town of Gorlivka, under Russian occupation, but was now thinking of leaving Ukraine altogether.

Liudmyla Safronova, another resident of the building who is 76 and a psychologist, said that during attacks "I have to calm all the residents down, so they don't panic."

"People listen," she told AFP.

It was "obvious" that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "wants to break people's spirit" and force Ukrainians to "make concessions to Russia", said 44-year-old Sergei Soloviov.

Putin has repeatedly said Moscow intends to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine and rejected face-to-face talks with Zelensky to end the war, launched by Moscow in 2022.

Kyiv also hit Russia with retaliatory strikes Saturday. Ukraine has struck deeper inside Russia this year, hitting as far as the Urals and Siberia.

Zelensky said Kyiv hit an oil refinery in the southern Russian Krasnodar region and a plant "supplying the occupiers" in the neighbouring Rostov region.

Authorities in Krasnodar said three people were killed by Ukrainian drones.