Russian strikes on the Ukrainian central city of Pavlograd on Friday killed one person and wounded more than 60 others, including several children, officials said.

Russia has stepped up aerial strikes on Ukraine since Kyiv launched an unprecedented cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk region last month. Five Iskander ballistic missiles were fired from Russian territory toward Pavlograd in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, said Ukraine’s air force.

“It’s a difficult day for the region,” said regional governor Sergiy Lysak. “The number of people injured in Pavlograd has risen to 64,” in addition to one death. Those wounded included five minors, including a nine-year-old girl and two boys aged 11 and four, said Lysak.

“Several enterprises in the city were damaged by rocket attacks. More than 30 multi-storey buildings, a kindergarten and 27 shops were damaged,” he added. The attack led to “several fires in the city”, including in an apartment in a high-rise building, said Lysak.

Russia regularly hits Pavlograd, home to a chemical plant that produces explosives.The city is located about 100 kilometres from fighting raging in the neighbouring Donetsk region as Russian forces advance there. It had a population of about 100,000 before the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Images of the strike shared by the interior ministry showed a badly damaged apartment building, where rescuers were working to evacuate residents.

Thick black smoke was coming out of several windows with blown-out glass, and in front of the building, tree branches were strewn all over the ground.

In a separate attack on Friday in the northern border region of Sumy, a Russian air strike on the village of Krasnopillia killed a 66-year-old woman in her home and wounded four others, the regional prosecutor said.

The strikes come at the end of a devastating week of Russian aerial attacks across Ukraine. On Wednesday, seven people died in a rare Russian missile attack on the city of Lviv in western Ukraine.

Strikes on a military training facility in the central city of Poltava killed 55 people on Tuesday, one of the deadliest single air attacks of the invasion.