🔴 Live: Girl, 2, killed and several injured after Russian strike near Dnipro

9:20am: Shelling continues in Russia’s Belgorod as thousands relocated, governor says

Shelling by Ukrainian forces on Russia’s Belgorod region continued overnight on Sunday after two people were killed the previous night and hundreds of children were evacuated away from the border, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Sunday.

“Overnight, it was quite restless,” Gladkov said on the Telegram channel, adding that the Shebekino and Volokonovsky districts suffered “lots” of damage from shelling during the night.

More than 4,000 people were relocated to temporary accommodation in the region, which borders Ukraine to its south and west, Gladkov said.

The reality of the war, which Moscow launched in Ukraine in February 2022, has been increasingly brought to Russia, with intensified shelling on border regions but also air strikes deep inside the country, including earlier this week on Moscow.

Ukraine denied attacking Moscow last week and has also denied that its military is involved in the incursions into Belgorod. It says they are conducted by Russian volunteer fighters

8:17am: Strike kills girl, injures 22 in Dnipro, local official says

A 2-year-old girl was killed and 22 people injured, including five children, when a Russian missile struck near the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional governor said on Sunday.

“Overnight, the body of a girl who had just turned two was pulled from under the rubble of a house,” Serhiy Lysak wrote on the Telegram messaging channel.

Seventeen people were being treated in hospital after the attack on a residential area by Iskander short-range cruise missiles, Lysak said.

7:33am: Clashes near Bakhmut continue despite easing, Ukraine’s military says

Despite a recent easing of combat in Bakhmut, clashes around the obliterated city in eastern Ukraine continue with Moscow suffering significant losses, Kyiv’s armed forces said on Sunday.

Ukraine’s top military command said in its daily report that Russian forced had carried out two unsuccessful operations around Bakhmut and launched a number of air strikes and artillery shelling on nearby villages.

“The enemy continues to suffer significant losses in the Bakhmut direction,” said the commander of the Ukraine’s ground forces, Oleksandr Syrsky on the Telegram messaging app after what he said was a visit to troops around Bakhmut. “Defence forces continue to fight. We will win.”

The Ukrainian daily report on Sunday said some 23 combat clashes had taken place over the past day in the Donetsk region, home to Bakhmut, and the neighbouring Luhansk region, which together make up the Donbas.

5:11am: Air strike injures 20 in residential area of Dnipro, Ukrainian official says

An air strike hit a residential district in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Saturday night, injuring 20 people and leaving three children in a serious condition, officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russia for the strike, saying more people were trapped beneath the wreckage.

“The Russians attacked the city,” Zelensky posted on Facebook on Saturday. “They hit between two two-story residential buildings. Unfortunately, there are people under the rubble.”

“Five children were wounded by the enemy in Pidhorodnenska community,” said Serhiy Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk region. “The total number of injured increased to 20. Of these, 17 are hospitalised,” he added.

“Under the rubble of a mangled house, rescuers continue to search for people. There is probably a child there.”

4:53am: Russia’s air attack repelled on approach to Kyiv, Ukraine says

Russia launched a wave of air attacks on Ukraine early on Sunday, with air defence systems repelling all missiles and drones on their approach to Kyiv, the capital’s military officials said.

“According to preliminary information, not a single air target reached the capital,” Serhiy Popko, the head of the military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app early on Sunday.

“Air defence destroyed everything that was heading towards the city already at their distant approaches.”

Reuters could not independently verify the report.

4:39am: Drone shot down in Crimea’s Dzhankoi, says Moscow-installed official

A drone was shot down in Dzhankoi in Crimea, a Russian-installed official in the peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, said on Sunday.

“There is damage to windows in several houses in a residential district” from the overnight incident, Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser in the Moscow-installed administration of Crimea, posted on the Telegram messaging app.

“All services are working. Official information – in the morning,” he said.

Reuters could not independently verify the report.

2:08am: Air defence systems engaged in repelling air attacks in Kyiv

Air defence systems were engaged in the early hours of Sunday in repelling air attacks near Kyiv, the military administration of the Ukrainian capital said on the Telegram messaging channel.

Reuters’ witnesses reported that there were several blasts heard in the Kyiv region from what sounded like air defence systems hitting targets.

All of Ukraine was under air raid alerts.

Key developments from Saturday, June 3:

Ukrainian officials announced Saturday that an inspection had found nearly a quarter of the country’s air raid shelters locked or unusable, just two days after a 33-year-old woman in Kyiv allegedly died waiting outside a shuttered shelter during a Russian missile barrage. The interior ministry said that of the “over 4,800” shelters it had inspected, 252 were locked and a further 893 “unfit for use”.

Ukraine is ready to launch its long-awaited counteroffensive to recapture Russian-occupied territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published on Saturday. “We strongly believe that we will succeed,” Zelensky told the Wall Street Journal.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)