14 dead as Ukraine, Russia exchange strikes: officials

Ukrainian attacks on Russia killed at least nine people on Sunday, while Russian attacks on Ukraine killed at least five, according to officials in both countries.

The exchange of strikes comes amid signs both Moscow and Kyiv are increasing the scale and intensity of attacks on each other, nearly four-and-a-half years into their grinding war.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine have soared this year, as Russia has ramped up its use of hard-to-intercept long-range missiles, according to UN data.

Kyiv has meanwhile launched waves of retaliatory strikes on Russia, including on energy facilities and retail warehouses, in an effort to pressure Moscow into negotiations on ending its offensive.

Ukrainian strikes on Russia's Belgorod region bordering Ukraine killed four people earlier Sunday, including a 13-year-old girl near a playground, the region's acting governor Alexander Shuvaev said.

"The 13-year-old girl was gravely wounded. Medics who arrived at the scene took all possible measures to save her, but her injuries were not incompatible with life," he said.

A separate drone attack on Russia's Saratov region bordering Kazakhstan killed two people, while three were killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a car in Russia's Udmurtia region -- more than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) from the front line, the region's acting governor Olga Abramova said.

"This act is monstrous in its senselessness. These people were definitely not a military target," she said.

In Ukraine, Russian strikes killed two people in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, and at least one person each in the southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, according to regional authorities.

A separate Russian strike destroyed a postal terminal in the northern Kharkiv region, killing a postal worker, the mail operator Nova Poshta said.

US-led talks on ending Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II have been effectively frozen since February, when the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran.

Both Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians.