TOP HEADLINES

· The governor of a Russian border region accused Ukraine of shelling an apartment block, but a Kyiv official said a stray Russian missile was to blame, in only one of a series of apparent strikes on Russian border towns. READ MORE BELOW

· Russian-backed forces have made some advances in eastern Ukraine, UK sources said, even as Moscow's hold weakens in the south, where a Russian-installed official has advised residents to flee.

· Ukraine's armed forces have liberated more than 600 settlements from the Russian occupation in the past month, including 75 in the highly strategic Kherson region, Ukraine's Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporary Occupied Territories said. 

· Talks on demilitarizing Europe's largest nuclear plant in Ukraine need a rapid solution to eliminate a "precarious" situation amid continued shelling, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said. Rafael Grossi also said he had told Russian President Vladimir Putin the continued detention of the deputy director of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station was unacceptable.

· Putin dismissed comments from his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that Moscow was "destabilizing" the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan. "I believe that these statements show a lack understanding of the course of the conflict," Putin said.

· Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has ordered the energy ministry to immediately work on building a gas hub in Türkiye following talks with Putin on the issue.

· Russian conductor Valery Gergiev has been expelled from his position as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music for his reluctance to condemn the Russian conflict in Ukraine.

· The World Health Organisation says there have been 620 attacks on healthcare in Ukraine since the conflict began in February.

· Russia's conflict with Ukraine is forcing Ireland to rethink its long tradition of military neutrality, the country's European Affairs Minister Thomas Byrne said.

· Ukraine could extradite Russian war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court even though Moscow is not a member, the tribunal's prosecutor said.

IN DETAIL

Ukraine and Russia blame each other over missile strike

The governor of a Russian border region accused Ukraine of shelling an apartment block there on Thursday, but a Kyiv official said a stray Russian missile was to blame, in only one of a series of apparent strikes on Russian border towns.

Vyacheslav Gladkov said a school had been damaged in a village close to the border, and that the top floor of an apartment block had been struck in the city of Belgorod.

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Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Russia had launched a missile towards the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv but "something went wrong and it hit a residential building".

Video showed rubble next to a 16-story apartment block with a large rupture near its roof. Gladkov said no one had been hurt.

Separately, Gladkov said that a border post in the frontier town of Shebekino, which adjoins Ukraine's eastern region of Kharkiv, and an ammunition depot near Belgorod city had been destroyed in Ukrainian strikes. He said that there had been no casualties in either strike.

Video, apparently of the ammunition depot, shared on social media showed a major fire illuminating the night sky.

The governor of another Russian region, Kursk, said an electricity substation had been damaged by a shell, which had knocked out power to two settlements.

Russian investigators said they had opened a criminal case into the shelling of the region and blamed the Ukrainian military. Ukraine's defense ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.