Ukrainian aerial attacks kill two in Russian border region

KIEV

Ukrainian aerial attacks killed a woman in the Russian border region of Belgorod and a man in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, officials announced Tuesday.

The Belgorod region, which sits across the border from Ukraine's northeast Kharkiv region where Russian troops have launched a major ground assault, has come under frequent attack throughout the two-year conflict.

"A kamikaze drone attacked a moving car in which there was a driver and three passengers," Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a post on Telegram.

"As a result of injuries sustained in the explosion, a woman died at the scene," he said.

The other three people in the car were wounded.

The attack occurred near a checkpoint at the village of Oktyabrsky, around 12 kilometers (7 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his forces launched the new offensive on the Kharkiv region two weeks ago in order to create a buffer zone to protect Russian frontier villages from Ukrainian attacks.

Moscow has claimed to have captured a dozen villages and made its most significant territorial gains in 18 months in the new assault.

A man was also killed by Ukrainian shelling in the city of Donetsk, the Russian-installed mayor Alexei Kulemzin said on Telegram.

"Residential buildings, a shopping centre and infrastructure facilities were also damaged. Windows were blown out, walls and roofs of buildings and a gas pipe were hit by fragments," he added.

Donetsk city has seen intense fighting and shelling since 2014, when Moscow-backed forces launched a civil war in eastern Ukraine trying to break away from Kiev. It sits close to the front lines in a region that Russia claims to have annexed.

Meanwhile, more than 14,000 people have been displaced in days from Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region, where Russia launched a ground offensive on May 10, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

"Over 14,000 people have been displaced in a matter of days, and nearly 189,000 more still reside within 25 kilometres of the border with the Russian Federation, facing significant risks due to the ongoing fighting," Jarno Habicht, the WHO's representative in Ukraine, told a press briefing in Geneva, via video-link from Kiev.