An adviser to Ukraine’s President says five people, including a three-month-old baby, were killed in a missile attack in the Black Sea port city of Odesa.
The Ukraine President's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, provided the information on Saturday as video footage posted on social media showed smoke billowing from a 14-storey block of apartments.
Emergency services could be seen rushing to the scene. One woman, who appeared to have some facial injuries, was speaking to local media.
Russia's Defence Ministry said its military had used high-precision missiles to destroy a logistics terminal in Odesa where a large number of weapons supplied by the United States and European nations were being stored.
In an online post, it also said Russian forces had killed up to 200 Ukrainian troops and destroyed more than 30 vehicles, some of them armoured.
An adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister earlier said that Russian forces had fired at least six cruise missiles at the city.
In a Telegram post on Saturday, local time, Anton Gerashchenko said Ukrainian forces were able to shoot down several missiles, but at least one landed and exploded.
"Residents of the city heard explosions in different areas," Mr Gerashchenko wrote.
Ukraine's southern air command said two missiles struck a military facility and two residential buildings in Odesa.
The last big strike on or near Odesa was in early April.
"The only aim of Russian missile strikes on Odesa is terror," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
Russia has denied targeting civilians in its "special military operation" that began on February 24.
Zelenskyy to meet with US officials, says it's 'vital' to obtain more weapons
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine hoped to secure the supply of heavy weapons during talks with the US secretaries of state and defense in Kyiv on Sunday, supplies that, he said, were vital for his country to eventually retake Russian-occupied territory.
The Ukrainian leader warned that Kyiv would quit talks with Moscow if Russia destroyed "our people" surrounded in the war-torn city of Mariupol or staged referendums to create more breakaway republics on newly-occupied Ukrainian soil.
At one point in an emotional news conference, Mr Zelenskyy said that he thought Russia could use a nuclear weapon, but that he did not want to believe that Moscow would.
He said that it was absolutely vital for Ukraine to obtain more weapons.
He used his news conference held underground in Kyiv's metro system to announce the imminent arrival of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin for talks on Sunday.
"Tomorrow we will discuss this exact list of weapons that are essential for us and the pace of deliveries," he said.
He fought back tears at one point, saying he shared the pain of every Ukrainian who had lost children in Russia's war.
Mr Zelenskyy said Saturday had been one of the most difficult days yet for Ukrainian forces encircled in Mariupol and that Kyiv had offered Moscow every possible kind of exchange deal to secure their release.
Russia tries to storm Mariupol plant
Ukrainian officials said Russian forces had tried to storm a Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant, attempting to crush the last vestige of resistance in a location of high symbolic and strategic value to Moscow.
Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said Russian forces had resumed air strikes on Azovstal and were trying to storm it.
"The enemy is trying to completely suppress resistance of the defenders of Mariupol in the area of Azovstal," Mr Arestovich said.
Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are holed up inside the sprawling dockside steelworks.
Mr Arestovich’s statement came two days after Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the whole of Mariupol, with the exception of Azovstal, had been "liberated" by the Russians.
Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian military not to storm the plant and, instead, to block it off in an apparent attempt to stifle the remaining pocket of resistance there.
Ukrainian officials estimate that about 2,000 of their troops were inside the plant, along with about 1,000 civilians, sheltering in the facility’s underground tunnels.
Mr Arestovich said the Ukrainian fighters were still holding on, despite the resumed attacks, and were even trying to fight back.
Earlier on Saturday, a Ukrainian military unit released a video reportedly taken two days earlier in which women and children — holed up underground, some for as long as two months — said they longed to see the sun.
Evacuation attempt fails in Mariupol
A new attempt to evacuate Ukrainian civilians from war-torn Mariupol failed on Saturday, an aide to the city's mayor said, blaming Russian forces.
The official said 200 residents of Mariupol had gathered to be evacuated, but that the Russian military told them to disperse and warned of possible shelling.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk had said earlier on Telegram that another attempt to evacuate women, children and the elderly from Mariupol would begin at midday on Saturday.
Many previous attempts to evacuate civilians from the city have failed.
The Governor of the eastern Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said on Telegram that an evacuation train would depart on Saturday from the eastern city of Pokrovsk.
It will bring them to the Western city of Chop, near Ukraine's border with Slovakia and Hungary, according to Mr Haidai.
Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy said new evidence was emerging that showed Russian troops killed tens of thousands of civilians in Mariupol and then tried to cover it up.
He said Ukraine had intercepted Russian conversations about "how they are concealing the traces of their crimes".
Satellite images have shown what appeared to be mass graves dug in towns to the west and east of Mariupol.
Mr Zelenskyy said the Russians set up "filtration camps" near Mariupol for those trying to leave the city, which had largely been reduced to rubble.
He said those who survived these camps were sent to areas under Russian occupation or to Russia itself, often as far as Siberia or the Far East.
Many of them, he said, were children.
Russia has said that establishing full control over the Donbas — a large part of which has been in the hands of Russia-backed separatists since 2014 — is currently one of the main goals of its operation in Ukraine.
UK to reopen Kyiv embassy
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office said the PM had spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by phone on Saturday afternoon, the latest chat between the two leaders who speak regularly.
Mr Johnson confirmed to Mr Zelenskyy that the United Kingdom would reopen its embassy in Kyiv next week.
He also updated the Ukrainian leader on new UK sanctions directed against members of the Russian military and told him the British government was helping to collect evidence of war crimes.
The British leader told Mr Zelenskyy that the UK was sending more defensive weaponry, including vehicles, drones and anti-tank missiles.
Also, the two discussed the UK’s work on long-term security solutions as well as financial support with international partners.
"The Prime Minister ended by reiterating the UK’s unwavering support for the people of Ukraine and committed to continue working with international partners to provide the assistance necessary to help Ukraine defend itself," Downing Street said in a statement.
ABC/wires
