Local authorities said Russian forces hit a television tower outside the western Ukrainian city of Rivne on Monday, killing nine people and injuring nine more.
“Nine dead, nine wounded,” Vitaliy Koval, the head of the regional administration, said on the messaging app Telegram, adding that efforts were underway to free survivors trapped beneath the rubble in the village of Antopil.

According to Interfax-Ukraine, Koval stated at a press conference that two rockets struck the building early Monday morning.

He posted photos of firefighters carrying stretchers and lifting sections of shattered concrete and brick walls with cranes.

Rivne is about 200 kilometres northeast of Lviv, a city near the Polish border that has become a transit point for many Ukrainians fleeing the country.