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Russian airstrikes hit the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Kharkiv killing three people and injuring at least 17, officials said Sunday, as the two countries observed Orthodox Easter Sunday.
Russia had used a guided aerial bomb in the strike launched from a plane. The region's governor, Oleg Syniehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app that Russia is using such extremely destructive weapons more frequently.
He also said a separate overnight drone attack on the city of Kharkiv wounded six, including a 9-year-old child.
The Russian defense ministry said Sunday its forces seized the village of Ocheretyne with a prewar population of 3,000, in Donetsk. Russian troops have been pummeling Kyiv's ammunition-depleted forces with artillery, drones and bombs.
Russian troops advanced in eastern Ukraine, particularly around the strategic town of Chasiv Yar, while Kyiv's troops wait for U.S. military aid that would help them push back Russian forces.
Despite the imminent Russian threat, residents in Kostiantynivka, 15 kilometers (about 9.32 miles) southwest of Chasiv Yar, attended the Orthodox Easter liturgy.
"We came in 2022 and in 2023, and we'll come again," said Natalia Hryhorieva, 58, outside an Orthodox church as she waited for a priest to bless her Easter basket with holy water.
In the background, cannon fire could be heard. The priest led a prayer for Ukraine's victor
Kostiantynivka, a key Ukrainian city in the industrialized Donetsk region, could be next in line to face a Russian onslaught if Chasiv Yar falls, analysts have said.
In an Easter message from Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to unite in prayer for each other and soldiers on the front line, saying God has a "Ukrainian flag on his shoulder."
"Let's pray for each other. When we all came closer to each other, we were no longer strangers to each other," he said in a video posted on Telegram. Standing in front of the 1,000-year-old Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine has now been fighting for 802 days against Russia.
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin attended an Easter service led by the head of Russia's Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, a staunch supporter of the Russian leader and Russia's war in Ukraine.
Eastern Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Easter later than Catholic and Protestant churches, because they use a different methodology for calculating the date of what they believe is Christ's resurrection.
Ukraine's Kharkiv and Dnipro regions also were hit by Russian drones Saturday. At least six people were injured, including a 13-year-old, when the drones struck commercial and residential buildings, regional officials said.
The Ukrainian air force said it downed 23 out of 24 Shahed drones targeting the regions again Sunday, with the debris from the falling drones in Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv striking civilian targets, injuring four people and causing a fire in an office building that has been brought under control, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said in a post on Telegram.
Ten more people were wounded in an airstrike Sunday afternoon on the Kharkiv regional capital, also called Kharkiv, Syniehubov said.
Fires broke out when debris from the drones that were shot down fell on buildings in the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region. No casualties were reported.
Russian state news agency RIA reported Saturday that Russian forces targeted a drone warehouse overnight in Kharkiv that it said had been used by Ukrainian troops. The state media cited Sergei Lebedev, a self-described coordinator of local pro-Moscow guerrillas.
His comments could not be independently verified, The Associated Press reported.
Some information for this report came from Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.