Ukraine to lose war if US Congress withholds aid: Zelensky

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that Kyiv will lose the war against Russia if the US Congress does not approve military aid to battle Moscow's invasion.

Republicans in Congress have been blocking tens of billions of dollars in military assistance for Kyiv for months.

"It is necessary to specifically tell Congress that if Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war," Zelensky said during a video meeting of Kyiv-organised fundraising platform United24.

Zelensky said it would be "difficult" for Ukraine to "stay" (survive) without the aid.

He said that "if Ukraine loses the war, other states will be attacked."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for more than two years.

Kyiv said Sunday that a Russian strike on the town of Gulyaipole in the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed three people.

"Two men and a woman died under the rubble of their own private house, which was hit by a Russian shell," the head of the region, Ivan Fedorov, said on social media.

Officials said another civilian, a woman, was killed in the city of Kupiansk, in the northeastern Kharkiv region that has seen increased attacks in recent months.

"A woman died under the rubble in an apartment on the fourth floor of a high-rise building," Ukraine's state emergency services said, adding that it was a residential building.

Authorities in the main city of Kharkiv said Russia launched another attack on Sunday, wounding five civilians, a day after a deadly attack there.

Russia, meanwhile, said it had destroyed 15 Ukrainian drones over its border Belgorod and Bryansk regions, reporting the death of a young woman.

Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said shrapnel hit a car with a family of six inside in the village of Shagarovka, some 35 kilometers (20 miles) from the border with Ukraine.

"Unfortunately, a girl died," Gladkov said, without specifying whether she was a minor. "She died from her wounds on the spot."

Gladkov said her father had a head wound and that two children were taken to hospital.

The Russian army said it had destroyed 12 Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod region and three over the Bryansk region -- both territories have been regularly targeted by Kyiv.