KYIV: Ukraine said that Russian attacks had killed five more civilians and wounded another 13 in the last 24 hours, but the two sides remained deadlocked in tough fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Authorities said the casualties included a woman who was killed and three others who were wounded in Russian attacks on the northeast city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.

Russian forces had seized much of the Kharkiv region early in the nearly yearlong war, but Ukrainian counteroffensives mostly regained control last August.

Ukraine said Russian strikes in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson killed three people Sunday and injured six.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that residential buildings, a hospital, a school, a bus station, a post office and a bank were also damaged by the shelling.

Russian strikes in the Southern Ukrainian city of Kherson killed three people Sunday and injured six.

The strike prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, once again, to express the need for allies to speed up their deliveries of promised weapons.

“We have to make time our weapon,” the president said in his daily address. “We must … speed up the supply and opening of new necessary weaponry options for Ukraine.”

Germany and the U.S. last week both promised to send tanks to Ukraine but the possibility of allied governments sending other advanced military support to the Kyiv government is uncertain.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called Monday for South Korea to send direct military support to Ukraine. The Seoul government is a growing arms exporter and has a well-equipped, U.S.-backed military.

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hinted Monday at the prospect of more upcoming pledges of military support for Ukraine, saying that “any activity aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s defense powers is under consultation with our NATO partners.”

But German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after hesitating for weeks over sending Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, appears opposed to sending fighter aircraft.

Scholz, who is currently on a trip to South America, said he regretted the emergence of the discussion on aircraft.

He said Saturday during a stop in Chile that a serious debate is necessary and not a “competition to outdo each other … in which perhaps domestic political motives are in the foreground rather than support for Ukraine.”

Russia and Ukraine made conflicting claims Sunday on who controls the territory near Blahodatne in the eastern part of the Donetsk region.

(VOA)