Russian missiles strike several Ukrainian cities: local officials

Lviv: The head of the Poltava region in Ukraine's Kyiv on Saturday said that two cities in central Ukraine have been striked by Russian missiles early on the day, damaging infrastructure and residential buildings.

"Poltava. A missile struck one of the infrastructure facilities overnight," Dmitry Lunin wrote in an online post. "Kremenchuk. Many attacks on the city in the morning."

Poltava city is the capital of the Poltava region, east of Kyiv, and Kremenchuk one of the area's major cities.

There was no immediate information about possible casualties, Lunin said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

In the Dnipro region in southwestern Ukraine, missiles hit an infrastructure facility, wounding two people and causing significant damage, Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the region, said in an online post.

In the city of Kryvyi Rih a petrol station has been shelled, causing fire, he added.

Russia denies targeting civilians in the war that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched on Feb. 24, calling the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two "special military operation".

Seven humanitarian corridors to evacuate people from Ukraine's besieged regions are planned for Saturday, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

The planned corridors include one for people evacuating by private transport from the city of Mariupol and by buses for Mariupol residents out of the city of Berdyansk, Vereshchuk said.