A Russian missile attack killed seven people in an eastern Ukrainian town and a separate attack left two others dead in a southern village, Kyiv said Monday.
A Russian ballistic missile attack on the town of Merefa, outside Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv, killed seven civilians and wounded dozens, regional authorities said.
AFP journalists in Merefa saw several bodies strewn in the street, covered by blankets and white sheets -- with shops, houses and cars damaged.
Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov first reported that five people had been killed but later said that two men had died from their wounds in hospital.
The other victims were two more men and three women, Synegubov said.
Igor Kolodyazhny, 41, told AFP he left home 10 minutes before his wife. When he heard the explosion, he said he "quickly jumped into the car" and drove back to her.
"I called her and she did not answer," he added, before finding out she was killed.
His wife, also 41, leaves behind two children aged six and 16.
Governor Synegubov said a two-year-old boy was among the wounded but that he was not taken to hospital.
The strike targeted "civilian infrastructure in a city located quite far from the front line", he added.
Russian forces have focused on taking territory in the Kharkiv region, from where they were pushed back by Ukrainian forces in 2022.
Separately, the governor of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov, said a Russian strike killed two people in the village of Vilnyansk.
"Unfortunately, a married couple was killed: a 51-year-old man and a 62-year-old woman," Fedorov said.
He added that their 31-year-old son was wounded in the strike, along with three other people.
Vilnyansk lies close to the regional capital of Zaporizhzhia -- towards which Russian forces have been grinding.
In Russia, the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said a Ukrainian drone killed a civilian resident in a border area.
Gladkov said the attack wounded seven others, including a 10-year-old boy.
US-led talks on ending the conflict have been sidelined by the Middle East war and deadly attacks have spiked in recent weeks.
