The number of bodies found in the rubble after a Russian missile attack on a building in the Ukrainian village of Chasiv Yar has risen to 31, according to Kiev, while Moscow claimed it was a military strike.
The Ukrainian civil defence authority said 31 bodies had been found, while nine people were brought out of the building alive. Rescue efforts are continuing and it remains unknown how many people are still missing.
Ukraine accuses Russia of targeting civilians, but Moscow claims the strike destroyed a military target. The building was a dormitory used by the armed forces.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konanshenkov said earlier on Monday that the target was purely military and was struck with precision weapons.
Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, citing the need to take out Nazi influences and keep the country from weaponizing, despite widespread scepticism about that goal.
Russia's Defence Ministry also reported attacks in eastern Ukraine, noting that it had destroyed a depot of military technology delivered from the West in Kharkiv and munitions for multiple rocket launchers delivered by the US in Dnipro. None of the reports can be independently verified.
Meanwhile Ukrainian forces continued to apply localized pressure to the Russian defensive line in North East Kherson, probably without achieving territorial gain, according to an assessment by the British Defence Ministry.
As the bombardment continues, Ukraine has called repeatedly for stronger weapons, and after a visit to parts of Kiev that have been destroyed, the Netherlands promised more support.
"It is important that we help here and now and make sure that Ukraine can defend itself," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told Dutch TV station NOS without giving further details.
The country said it had already supplied Ukraine with weapons worth almost €173 million ($175 million), including howitzers. Five of the pieces of heavy weaponry have already been delivered, with three more to follow.
Rutte earlier visited the heavily bombed suburbs of Borodyanka, Bucha and Irpin and expressed horror at the devastation caused by Moscow's forces.
As attacks continue, official figures show around 7,000 military personnel have gone missing in Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
Among them are soldiers, members of the national guard and the border guard, as well as intelligence officers, Oleh Kotenko, Ukraine's commissioner for missing persons, said on public television.
Most of those missing are presumed to be in Russian captivity. The army alone has registered about 2,000 soldiers as missing. Russia claims to have taken more than 6,000 Ukrainians prisoner since then.
Moscow is also pursuing a process of enabling Ukrainians to become Russian citizens, in a policy many fear could indicate further plans to seize land and people.
Putin signed a decree simplifying the process for Ukrainian residents to get Russian citizenship.
The simplified rules had already been in effect for two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.
But the decision is a concern for Ukraine, since Russian military doctrine justifies interventions in cases where it is seen as necessary to jump in to protect the rights of Russian citizens, which could now potentially be all of Ukraine, in Moscow's eyes.
The rules have been in effect for eastern Ukraine since 2019. Russian Interior Ministry figures show that 800,000 people in two separatist regions had taken advantage of the offer.
Russia has also begun offering passports to people in regions it has occupied since February, raising fears it is planning an annexation.
Meanwhile in Russia, flight bans introduced in the south are set to stay in place through July 18, air traffic authority Rosaviatsiya announced on Monday.
In all, 11 airports are affected, including ones at the Black Sea resort of Anapa, in Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, Gelendzhik and Voronezh, and one in Simferopol, on the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
The restrictions are to remain in place until 0045 GMT on July 18.
Russia shut down service at multiple airports in its south in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine and has routinely extended the restrictions since then, even as the war comes close to entering its fifth month.
