Eight people were killed after Ukraine's industrial region of Dnipropetrovsk was bombarded from the air by Russia early on Friday, Ukrainian authorities said, but there was some success for Kiev with a Russian supersonic bomber allegedly shot down.
Ukraine, which has called for extra weapons from Western allies to repel Kremlin forces, is being targeted almost every night by Russian missiles as Moscow tries to up the ante after months of front-line stalemate in the two-year conflict.
At least two people were killed and 15 injured in the regional capital of Dnipro, Governor Serhiy Lysak announced on Telegram.
A five-storey residential building was hit and the state-owned railway said rail facilities had been targeted. The main railway station in Dnipro was closed and long-distance trains were diverted.
According to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, six people were also killed in the town of Synelnykove - including two children - after several family homes were hit.
A factory was also damaged in Pavlohrad and an infrastructure building in Kryvyi Rih, officials added.
According to Lysak, the air-defence system over Dnipropetrovsk was able to shoot down nine Russian missiles, but others got through.
Since Soviet times, Dnipro and other cities in the region have been home to Ukraine's defence industries.
To the south, the Dnipro River forms the southern front line of the war and Russian troops had shelled the Nikopol district across the river with artillery, Lysak added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Dnipro on Friday, from where he wrote on Telegram, "We are working with our partners to provide additional air-defence systems for Ukraine."
He also visited a command post near the embattled city of Chasiv Yar on the eastern front in the Donetsk region - and awarded medals to soldiers.
Chasiv Yar, not far from Bakhmut, which was captured by the Russians almost a year ago after heavy fighting, is considered to be the Kremlin army's next target following a drawn-out invasion that began in February 2022.
Hundreds of kilometres away in the south-west of the country, the port city of Odessa was attacked with missiles from the Black Sea, the Ukrainian Air Force said.
Local military administrator Oleh Kiper said that the strike had damaged port infrastructure and injured one person.
According to regional media reports, several powerful explosions rang out across the city. Later, thick smoke rose from the site of the attack.
Earlier on Friday the Russian Air Force acknowledged it had lost one of its Tupolev Tu-22M supersonic heavy bombers but said the crash was due to technical reasons. In contrast, Ukraine said that it had shot the plane down.
Russian and Ukrainian military bloggers shared spectacular but unverified videos on social media which allegedly showed the long-range bomber spinning in the air with its engine on fire.
The commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mykola Oleshchuk, announced that this was the first time such an aircraft had been successfully brought down with a missile.
The claims of both sides could not be independently verified.
In a dig at the West whom he accuses of being slow to deliver weapons, especially air-defence systems, Zelensky later wrote on Telegram that the skies over Ukraine could be defended just as well as the skies over Israel if foreign partners supplied more weapons.
