Ukraine war: Eight killed in Russian strike in Lyman, say authorities

At least eight people have been killed in an attack on a residential area in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, the country's authorities have said.

Ukraine's interior ministry said another five people were wounded in the Russian shelling of the town of Lyman.

The strike caused fires in a house, a printing shop and three cars which have now been put out by rescuers, the ministry said.

It comes as the country marks the 500th day of the invasion.

Ukraine's counter-offensive, which began last month, continues to grind on in the eastern Donetsk and south-eastern Zaporizhzhia regions.

Its advances have been slow, as Russia continues its missile and drone attacks.

The small city of Lyman is a key railway junction in the Donetsk, and Russia had been "concentrating quite powerful forces" there, the spokesman of Ukraine's eastern group of forces, Serhiy Cherevatyy, told Ukrainian television on Friday.

"At around 10:00, the Russians struck the town with multiple rocket launchers," the regional governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on social media on Saturday. He said a house and a shop were damaged.

The BBC has not been able to verify the claims.

On Thursday, 10 people, including a woman aged 95, were killed after a Russian rocket hit an apartment building in Lviv, western Ukraine.

Another 40 people were injured in what the mayor of Lviv described as "one of the biggest attacks" on the city's civilian infrastructure.

For months, Russia has been carrying out deadly missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, often hitting civilian targets and causing widespread blackouts.

"I want to thank from here, from this place of victory, each of our soldiers for these 500 days," Mr Zelensky said.