Russian strikes hit an apartment building and energy sites in Ukraine, killing four

A Russian drone has slammed into an apartment building in eastern Ukraine while many were sleeping, killing three people and wounding 12 others, Ukrainian authorities reported.

The Saturday morning attack in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, was part of a large Russian missile and drone barrage across the country that targeted power infrastructure.

It also killed a worker at an energy company in Kharkiv, farther north, a local official said.

READ MORE: Aussies like Cassie resorting to selling their clothes to make ends meet

A fire broke out and several apartments were destroyed in the nine-story building in Dnipro, the emergency services said.

Rescuers recovered the bodies of three people, while two children were among the wounded.

Russia fired a total of 458 drones and 45 missiles, including 32 ballistic missiles.

Ukrainian forces shot down and neutralised 406 drones and nine missiles, the air force said, adding that 25 locations were struck.

Authorities switched off power in several regions because of the attacks, Ukrainian Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk said in a post on Facebook.

In eastern Ukraine, fighting for the strategic city of Pokrovsk has reached a key stage, with both Kyiv and Moscow vying to persuade US President Donald Trump that they can win on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that work has begun on President Vladimir Putin’s order to prepare plans for a possible Russian nuclear test, according to state news agency Tass.

Putin’s order on Wednesday followed statements by Trump, which appeared to suggest that Washington would restart its own atomic tests for the first time in three decades.

READ MORE: Grieving husband's powerful message after Brisbane mum killed in motorbike crash

Energy sites attacked

Russia has been pummeling Ukraine with near-daily drone and missile strikes, killing and wounding civilians.

The Kremlin says its only targets are linked to Kyiv’s war effort.

Russia's Defence Ministry asserted Saturday that the nighttime strikes hit military and energy sites supplying Ukrainian forces.

Moscow and Kyiv have traded almost daily assaults on each other’s energy targets as US-led diplomatic efforts to stop the nearly four-year war had no impact on the battlefield.

Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue the war.

Russia wants to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Kyiv officials say is an attempt to “weaponise winter”.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in an X post that the strikes damaged “several major energy facilities” around Kharkiv and Kyiv, as well as in the central Poltava region.

READ MORE: Man accused of stealing luxury car and going for a joyride

Thermal power plants operated by Ukraine’s state energy company Centrenergo were again knocked offline by the nighttime strikes, the company said in a statement Saturday.

Centrenergo's three plants in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk regions were damaged by Russian attacks last year and subsequently restored.

Russian forces, meanwhile, repelled a “massive” nighttime strike on energy facilities in the southern Volgograd region, Governor Andrei Bocharov said on Saturday, two days after Ukraine said that it hit a key oil refinery there with long-range drones.

Bocharov added that the strike knocked out power in parts of the region's northwest, but caused no casualties.

There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

Russia's Defence Ministry said on Saturday that its forces shot down 82 Ukrainian drones during the night, including eight over the Volgograd region.

Two people were wounded in the neighbouring Saratov region after a Ukrainian drone strike blew out windows in an apartment building, according to regional Governor Roman Busarin.

READ MORE: Three men fight for life after being hit by car outside restaurant in Sydney

Russian oil

Following weeks of long-range strikes on Russia's energy infrastructure that Ukraine says both funds and directly fuels the Kremlin's war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to “find a way to ensure there is no Russian oil in Europe”.

Zelenskyy spoke to reporters shortly after Hungary secured a year-long exemption from recent US sanctions targeting major Russian oil producers.

“We will not allow it. We will not let the Russians sell oil there. It’s a matter of time," he said at a news briefing after meeting with senior Ukrainian military leaders, without elaborating how Kyiv might seek to stanch the oil flows.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a Trump ally who has long urged the European Union to repair ties with Moscow, argues that landlocked Hungary has no viable alternatives to Russian crude, and that replacing those supplies would trigger an economic collapse. Critics dispute that claim.

The Trump administration unveiled sanctions against Russia’s major state-affiliated oil firms Rosneft and Lukoil last month, a move that could expose their foreign buyers – including customers in Central Europe, India and China – to secondary sanctions.

While most of the EU's 27 member states sharply reduced or halted imports of Russian fossil fuels after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Hungary and Slovakia have maintained their pipeline deliveries.

Hungary has even increased the share of Russian oil in its energy mix.

Fighting for Pokrovsk

The city of Pokrovsk sits along the eastern front line, part of what has been dubbed the “fortress belt” of Donetsk, a line of heavily fortified cities crucial to Ukraine’s defence of the region.

It could also be a key point in influencing Washington's stance and sway the course of peace negotiations, analysts say.

Russia troops advanced near Pokrovsk and the nearby town of Myrnohrad, according to the Russian Defence Ministry on Saturday, saying both were encircled.

It also said Russian forces surrounded Ukrainian defenders in Kupiansk, a key railway hub in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

Kyiv didn't immediately respond to Moscow's statements, which couldn't be independently verified.

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.