RUSSIAN forces fired cruise missiles at the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa overnight and shelling destroyed homes in the eastern Donetsk region early today, killing at least six people and injuring more than a dozen others, regional officials said.

A Ukrainian military spokesman said that Russian forces have stepped up aerial strikes in their more than 15-month war against Ukraine, just as the country’s troops have reported limited gains in a counter-offensive.

In the east, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote on Telegram that at least three people died after shelling destroyed seven homes and damaged dozens more in the cities of Kramatorsk and Konstantinovka.

In Odessa, three employees of a food warehouse were killed and seven others injured in a strike that damaged homes, a warehouse, shops and cafes downtown, the regional administration said on Facebook. Another six people — guards and residents of a neighbouring house — were injured.

Rescuers were looking for possible survivors under the rubble, it said.

The attack on the port city, launched from the Black Sea, involved four Kalibr cruise missiles, three of which were intercepted by air defences, the administration said.

Andriy Kovalov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s general staff, said that Russian forces have increased missile and aerial strikes on Ukraine.

In a briefing, he said that strikes on the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kirovohrad regions, in addition to the Odessa region, involved Kh-22 cruise missiles, sea-launched Kalibr cruise missiles and Iranian-made Shahed drones. Nine were intercepted.

Kovalov said that Ukrainian forces made advances on several fronts of the roughly 600-mile front line and fighting was continuing in or near at least two settlements in the eastern Donetsk region. Russia has occupied and controls nearly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.

Meanwhile, senior Nato officials met with government representatives from Sweden, Finland and Turkey in Ankara today, as the alliance pushes Turkey to ratify Sweden’s application to join the military bloc.

But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today that Nato should not bet on his country approving Sweden’s application to join the Western military alliance before a July summit because the Nordic nation has not fully addressed his “security” concerns, which relate to activism abroad by Kurdish separatists.