Two children among three dead in Ukraine airstrike

Two children were among three killed in a Russian bombardment of an apartment building in Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv, with dozens more injured, the local governor said Thursday.

A guided aerial bomb -- a powerful weapon widely used by Russia -- hit the building in the northeastern city on Wednesday evening, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The attack killed three -- two boys aged 12 and 15 and a man -- and wounded 35 people, governor Oleg Synegubov said, upping earlier tolls.

"The body of a 15-year-old boy with no signs of life was extracted from the rubble of the destroyed part of the nine-storey building," Synegubov said in his latest update.

Rescuers struggled to remove the body of the boy, who lived with his grandparents on the first floor of the building, after several floors collapsed, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said.

AFP journalists at the scene saw rescuers searching through debris of the damaged apartment building, whose facade had partially collapsed.

Kharkiv lies around 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the Russian border and has been pounded by Russian aerial attacks throughout the two-and-a-half-year war.

On Wednesday evening, Zelensky called on his Western allies to act in response to the strike.

"Every decision they delay means at least dozens or even hundreds of such Russian bombs against Ukraine. Their decisions mean the lives of our people," he said on Telegram.

Zelensky has been asking Western countries to provide Ukraine with better defences, particularly long-range weapons.

Ukrainian defences downed two missiles and 17 drones launched by Russia overnight, the air force said Thursday.