Pallade Veneta - At least 16 killed in Russian and Ukrainian strikes

Both Moscow and Kyiv have stepped up attacks after the deadliest summer since 2022 -- the year Russia launched its invasion, starting Europe's worst war since World War Two.

US-led talks to end fighting have not led to a breakthrough and the Kremlin has repeatedly said it intends to seize the rest of east Ukraine.

Kyiv said Russian strikes had killed at least six people -- in northeastern Sumy, in Zaporizhzhia and in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where a 17-year-old girl was among the victims.

And in Kyiv, several people were wounded a day after a day-time Russian attack killed seven people. Moscow has intensified strikes on the capital as the city prepares for another winter of war.

Russia said Ukrainian strikes had killed four people in its Krasnodar and Belgorod regions.

Vladimir Saldo, appointed by Moscow to lead occupational authorities in the Kherson region, said a Ukrainian drone had hit a cafe in the village of Askaniya-Nova, near Crimea, Friday evening.

"Under the rubble, rescuers found the bodies of two young girls -- born in 2004 and 2006," he said on Telegram, adding that a man had also been killed in the same area.

Moscow-appointed official Yevgeny Balitsky said night-time Ukrainian strikes killed three more people in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region.

United Nations officials have warned about the increasing numbers of civilian victims in the war.

At the UN General Assembly this week, US President Donald Trump once again said that a deal between Moscow and Kyiv to end the war was "going to happen".*

For many observers however, that prospect appeared distant.

- 'Everything is burning' -

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that Russia was "escalating every single day".

In Kyiv's Solomianskyi district, residents of a typical Soviet-era apartment bock hit by a Russian drone were cleaning up their building -- already worried about what might come next.

Oleksandr Gorlachov, 43, had gone to his allotment plot outside the city Friday night.

Early Saturday morning however, he was woken up by a video call from his elderly parents -- who are both deaf -- and rushed back to help.

"I watched as my mother is standing there in her nightgown, my father in his underwear, outside the building in tears... and there are flames, everything is burning," he told AFP.

"The apartment is completely smashed up."

His mother, he said, is a seamstress.

"Her sewing machine was there. She was in tears because it's broken now. So, well, it's a tragedy. But in my family everyone is alive and for that I thank God," he said.

With mounting Russian attacks on the capital, his family is in "constant stress" and he tries to distract himself by planting tomatoes.

"They don't have enough land," he said, mocking Russia -- the world's largest country. "They want to simply wipe out our nation."

- 'Not going anywhere' -

Despite Russia making life in Kyiv increasingly tough, Gorlachov said he "wasn't going anywhere".

But fellow resident Anastasiia Grygorovych -- woken up when her window "fell on me" -- had already fled her home-town of Gorlivka, now occupied by Russia.

Now she was considering leaving Ukraine altogether.

"In general, I’m already thinking that I need to leave," she said.

Russia's invasion has forced millions to flee their homes.

Kyiv also hit Russia with retaliatory strikes Saturday. Ukraine has struck deeper inside Russia this year, hitting as far as the Urals and Siberia.

Zelensky said Kyiv hit an oil refinery in the southern Russian Krasnodar region and a plant "supplying the occupiers" in the neighbouring Rostov region.

The Ukrainian leader called on allies to adopt more sanctions on Moscow.

C.Grillo--PV