“DIFFICULT SITUATION”
The attacks came with Russia seeking to press its advantage on the battlefield.
Kyiv has admitted it is heavily outgunned and outnumbered, facing ammunition shortages amid aid delays.
Half of all promised Western ammunition arrives in the country late, the defence minister has said, in what he called critical delays that cost lives and territory.
Russian forces have advanced westwards following last month’s capture of Avdiivka, and have seized several small villages in recent days.
Visiting frontline military posts on Saturday, Ukraine’s new Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky said, “the situation at the front remains difficult, but controlled”.
Kyiv also appeared to have launched its own overnight drone attack that damaged a residential building in Saint Petersburg, Russia’s second city.
Videos on Russian social media showed what appeared to be a drone spiralling downwards into the building, triggering an explosion, blowing out windows and causing small fires.
The city’s National Guard division said its preliminary assumption was that the damage was caused by a “falling drone”.
Ukrainian media reported that the drone was shot down by Russia’s air defences while targeting an oil depot around a kilometre from the crash site.
Kyiv has hit several Russian oil facilities in recent months in what it has called fair retribution for Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said separately that four of its officials had been injured when a Ukrainian drone dropped explosives over the Bryansk border region.
