Russian strikes kill 4, wound two dozen in Ukraine

Russian forces killed four people and wounded nearly two dozen others -- including two children and a pregnant woman -- in separate attacks, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the latest bombardment undermined peace efforts and urged his allies to step up pressure on Moscow to end the war, which is grinding towards its fourth-year anniversary.

"Every such Russian strike erodes the diplomacy that is still ongoing and undermines the efforts of partners who are helping to end this war," he wrote on social media.

A married couple aged 45 and 48 were killed in Sloviansk in the eastern Donetsk region, a key prize for the Kremlin, which has concentrated its firepower there.

Their 20-year-old son survived the attack in the region that the Kremlin claims to have annexed, local prosecutors said.

A Russian drone barrage meanwhile killed one person whose body was retrieved from rubble and wounded nearly two dozen people in the southern city of Odesa, regional officials said.

The Black Sea city key for Ukrainian exports has been pummeled routinely by Russian forces since they invaded Ukraine nearly four years ago.

The governor Oleg Kiper said Russia had launched more than 50 attack drones on the region, damaging dozens of residential buildings, a church and schools.

The attack wounded at least 23 people, including two girls and a woman 39 weeks pregnant, he said.

In a separate drone attack in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, a 58-year-old was killed in their home.

Russian drone and missile attacks have recently knocked out power, lighting and heat to millions of Ukrainians across the country.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 165 attack drones overnight, and Ukrainian officials said an infrastructure facility in the western Lviv region was hit.

Russian forces meanwhile are advancing across the front. The Russian defense ministry announced on Tuesday it had captured two more villages in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv.