Russian drone attacks killed a 12-year-old girl in central Ukraine and wounded three people in Kyiv overnight, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.
One drone hit a residential building in Samarivskyi district in the central Dnipropetrovsk region.
Residents pulled the girl out of the rubble but she died on the way to the hospital, Ukraine’s emergency service said.
It posted photos of emergency workers sifting through wreckage.
“The Russian army again massively deployed drones to the region,” Dnipropetrovsk region governor Serhiy Lysak said, adding that a 6-year-old girl and two adults were hurt in the attack.
The air force downed seven drones over the region, he said.
Two weeks ago, five children were injured including one fatally as Russia’s military hit the Ukraine city of Dnipro with a mass drone attack
More than 2,520 children have been killed or injured in Putin’s war in Ukraine, United Nations children’s organisation UNICEF said in February, with the real death toll likely to be higher that this UN-verified figure.
Overall, Ukraine’s air force said Russia attacked Ukraine with 100 drones overnight, and air force units shot down 37 of them.
Emergency services were also called to Kyiv’s sprawling northeastern Desnianskyi district where debris from a destroyed drone sparked a fire at a recreation building, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Timur Tkachenko, said that air defence systems were deployed just before 1am local time.
The overnight drone strikes came just hours after Putin announced a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire next week to mark Victory Day in the Second World War.
The Kremlin said the truce will run from the start of May 8 and last until the end of May 10 to mark Russia’s defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, Russia’s biggest secular holiday which normally sees a huge parade in Moscow’s Red Square.
But Trump is demanding a permanent ceasefire, with the White House stressing that he is “increasingly frustrated” with both Putin and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kyiv, which has previously agreed to the US president’s proposal of a full 30-day ceasefire, dismissed Putin’s move as window dressing.
“Now there’s a new attempt at manipulation: for some reason, everyone has to wait until May 8 and only then to cease fire to guarantee silence,” said Mr Zelensky.
His foreign minister Andrii Sybiha added: “Why wait for May 8? If we can cease fire now from any date and for 30 days - so that it is real, and not just for a parade.”
He did not say if Ukraine would accept the proposed truce.
The Kremlin had urged Ukraine to follow suit, warning that “in case of violations of the ceasefire by the Ukrainian side, the Russian armed forces will give an adequate and efficient response”.
Putin previously announced an Easter ceasefire but Ukraine said it was repeatedly breached, with Russian claims that Kyiv forces also broke it.
