In the early hours of Friday, Russian war planes carried out what appeared to be the first direct attack on Dnipro, killing one person, emergency services said.
KYIV - Russian shelling hit civilian targets in central Ukraine's Dnipro city on Friday, as Moscow's troops edged closer to Kyiv, where officials said the capital was being transformed into a "fortress".
Elsewhere, the Ukrainian military warned "the enemy is trying to eliminate the defences of the Ukrainian forces around" regions to the west and northwest of the capital "to block Kyiv."Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko said half the city's population had fled and the capital "has been transformed into a fortress".
"This will reduce the number of forces available to continue their advance and will further slow Russian progress," a statement tweeted by the ministry said.But there has been no let-up in the onslaught on several major cities, with the southern port city of Mariupol suffering relentless bombardment, including on attempted aid deliveries, according to Zelensky.
In a video, Mariupol mayor Vadym Boichenko said Russian warplanes had targeted residential areas in the city "every 30 minutes" on Thursday, "killing civilians, the elderly, women and children." Moscow said it would also open daily humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians to Russian territory, but Kyiv has rejected routes leading to Russia.
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