Sawt Falasteen - Two children among 12 dead in fresh Ukraine, Russia strikes

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 video showing bodies strewn on the street and bloodied victims.

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, describing such Russian attacks as "human safaris".

Regional officials posted photos showing a yellow mini-bus ripped open in the attack and remains of those killed lying on the street.

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.

Moscow's army has been regularly attacking civilians in their cars or in public transport with drones over the Dnipro.

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.

Overnight, a separate Russian drone strike on the Dnipropetrovsk region killed an 11-year-old boy and wounded five others when a house caught fire, the governor said.

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.

The region is more than 500 kilometres (300 miles) from the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

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M.AlAhmad--SF-PST