Governor Vadym Filashkin, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said Russian forces launched three night-time strikes on the town north of Pokrovsk, one of the focal points of their advance through eastern Ukraine.

Filashkin initially said five people had died in Dobropillia.

Donetsk region is the theatre of the fiercest fighting in the three-year-old war against Russia, with Moscow’s forces advancing slowly and steadily westward as part of a drive to capture the Donbas, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Filashkin said that according to initial information, four high-rise apartment buildings were damaged in the assault.

Emergency crews were at the site.

He urged residents of towns near the 1,000km frontline of the war to evacuate their homes in good time.

Donetsk prosecutors had earlier said five residents of the region had been killed in Russian attacks on a string of towns and villages.

One resident was killed in the town of Pokrovsk, one of the main targets of the Russian advance through the region.

Two others were killed in attacks on villages near the city of Kostyantynivka, farther northeast, and one other victim was identified as a resident of a village near the town of Kurakhove, which Russia’s military said it captured in January.

In Ukraine’s southern Black Sea port of Odesa, regional governor Oleh Kiper said a Russian drone attack had again damaged energy infrastructure and other targets.

Drones have attacked the city for several consecutive nights.