Two children among 13 dead in fresh Ukraine, Russia strikes

Les services d'urgence évacuent des civils blessés après que des frappes russes ont attaqués un bus à Nikopol, dans la région de Dnipropetrovsk, en Ukraine, le 7 avril 2026. (AP via Service d'urgence ukrainien)

KYIV - Russian artillery and aerial attacks killed nine people in Ukraine -- including a child -- in strikes across the country on Tuesday, officials said.

Those strikes came as Moscow, which invaded Ukraine more than four years ago, said a Ukrainian drone had hit a house in Russia, killing a child and his parents.

Russia’s invasion has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of people from their homes in the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.

The two sides have stepped up deadly long-range drone and missile attacks in recent months, mainly targeting energy infrastructure, with Moscow aiming to dent Ukrainian resolve and Kyiv targeting Russian energy revenues.

Russian shelling in the southern city of Kherson - captured by Russia and then liberated in 2022 - killed four people and wounded several others, a regional official said.

The official, Oleksandr Prokudin, likened the Russian shelling on Kherson to “hell” and posted footage showing bodies strewn on the street and bloodied victims.

‘Deliberate terror’

The attack in Kherson came just hours after a Russian drone attack on a passenger bus in the frontline city of Nikopol killed four people, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“The Russians continue their deliberate terror against people in Nikopol and other cities and communities near the front,” Zelensky added.

Regional officials posted photos showing a yellow mini-bus ripped open in the attack and remains of those killed lying on the street. Hours later, another attack hit another bus near the city, wounding five, local authorities said.

Nikopol, which had a pre-war population of around 100,000 people, lies on the banks of the Dnipro river, which cuts through Ukraine and forms a de facto front line in the south of the country.

The city is in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Russian ground forces are battling to advance.

The strike in Nikopol is the latest in a series of deadly attacks in recent days that have spurred Ukrainian officials to warn that the situation in the city could further deteriorate.

A Ukrainian drone hit a school and an ambulance van in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, wounding seven schoolchildren and three adults, as well as killing a local official, said the Moscow-backed regional head Yevgeny Balitsky.

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone strike on a residential building killed a boy, born in 2014, and two adults in the Russian region of Vladimir, east of Moscow, said Governor Alexander Avdeev.

The couple’s five-year-old daughter was taken to hospital with burns.