Russia has launched a series of missile and artillery attacks on Ukraine, the second pre-dawn attack in three days.

One person died in the Kherson region and 25 people – including three children – were injured in Dnipropetrovsk.

Ukraine’s armed forces said 15 of 18 missiles fired were intercepted by the country’s air defence.

One of the main targets was the city of Pavlohrad near Dnipro – a Russian-installed official said resources for a Ukrainian offensive were hit.

Writing on Telegram with a thumbs-up gesture, Vladimir Rogov said missiles targeted railway infrastructure and fuel depots.

Nineteen high-rise apartment blocks, 25 private houses, six schools and kindergartens, and five shops were also damaged.

Pavlohrad is in Ukrainian-held territory, around 70 miles (110km) from the frontline.

Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk military administration described it as a “tragic night and morning”.

In Kyiv, the air raid alert sounded at around 04:00 local time (02:00 GMT) and lasted for about three hours. The military administration said all missiles and drones directed at the capital were destroyed.

In the Kherson region – which is still partly controlled by Russia – Ukrainian regional authorities said Russia had carried out 39 shellings.

They came from ground-based weapons, as well as drones and planes, the authorities said.

Recent days have seen an increase in attacks in Ukraine, with places away from the front lines being targeted. On Friday, 23 people were killed in the central city of Usman.

Ukraine says it is finishing plans for a long-awaited offensive against Russian forces, supported by Western-supplied weapons and military equipment.

Russia, meanwhile, is also preparing for a Ukrainian push and has fortified its positions in occupied territory.

In the latest change at the country’s military leadership, Cl Gen Mikhail Mizintsev – the Russian deputy defence minister who oversaw armed forces logistics – has been sacked, after being appointed to the role only last September.

There have been longstanding complaints that front-line troops are not getting sufficient military equipment, and suffer shortages of food and uniforms.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian official on Monday said the army had ousted Russian forces from some positions in Bakhmut, an eastern city that has been under siege for months.

General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of ground forces, said on Telegram the situation remained “quite difficult” – but “the enemy is unable to take control of the city”.

BBC/Adetutu Adetule

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Russia’s Vladimir Putin will hold a signing ceremony on Friday formally annexing four more areas of Ukraine after self-styled referendums condemned by Ukraine and the West as a sham.

Russian-backed officials had earlier claimed the five-day exercise secured almost total popular support.

So-called votes were held in Luhansk and Donetsk in the east, and in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south.

The Russian president will make a major speech at the Kremlin.

A stage has already been set up in Moscow’s Red Square, with billboards proclaiming the four regions as part of Russia. There were echoes of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, which also followed a discredited referendum and was heralded by a presidential victory speech from a stage.

However, no independent monitoring of the process took place and there were accounts of election officials going from door to door escorted by armed soldiers.

The US has said it will impose sanctions on Russia because of the referendums and EU member states are considering an eighth round of measures.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Thursday that people in occupied regions of Ukraine had been taken from their homes and workplaces by threat and sometimes at gunpoint. “This is the opposite of free and fair elections. And this is the opposite of peace, it is a dictated peace,” she said.

The exercise began across 15% of Ukraine last Friday with only a few days’ notice. Russian state media argued that the use of armed guards was for security purposes but it was clear that it had the added effect of intimidating residents.

“You have to answer verbally and the soldier marks the answer on the sheet and keeps it,” one woman in Enerhodar told the BBC.

Russia does not fully control any of the four regions it has decided to annex. Although most of Luhansk remains in Russian hands, Moscow only controls 60% of Donetsk.

Seven months after Russian forces invaded Ukraine from the north, east and south, war is still raging on front lines in all four areas. The capital of the southern region of Zaporizhzhia is firmly under the control of Ukraine’s government, and a counter-offensive is underway in Kherson.

BBC/ Titilayo Kupoliyi

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Ukrainian forces have seized even more territory from Russia as they continue their counter-offensive, the country’s president has said.

Volodymyr Zelensky said troops have now retaken more than 6,000 sq km (2,317 sq miles) from Russian control in September, in the east and the south.

The BBC cannot verify these figures.

Russia has admitted to losing key cities in the north-eastern Kharkiv region, in what is seen by some military experts as a potential breakthrough in the war.

Moscow describes its troop withdrawal from the region in recent days as a “regrouping” with the aim of focusing on the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Ukraine’s east.

That claim has been ridiculed even in Russia, with many social media users there describing the stated pull-out as “shameful”.

Speaking later on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ukrainian forces had made “significant progress” in their counter-offensive, but added that it was too early to predict the outcome.

“The Russians maintain very significant forces in Ukraine as well as equipment and arms and munitions. They continue to use it indiscriminately against not just the Ukrainian armed forces but civilians and civilian infrastructure as we’ve seen,” Mr Blinken said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. Russia still holds about a fifth of the country.

In his late video address on Monday, President Zelensky said: “From the beginning of September until today, our warriors have already liberated more than 6,000 sq km of the territory of Ukraine – in the east and south”.

“The movement of our troops continues,” he said.

The counter-offensive appears to have been rapid. Last Thursday, President Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had retaken 1,000 sq km, but by Sunday that stated figure had tripled to 3,000 sq km.

Mr Zelensky thanked several of Ukraine’s brigades involved in the counter-offensive, describing their fighters as “true heroes”.

He did not reveal which Ukrainian cities and villages had been liberated.

Russia’s military earlier admitted that its troops had to leave the key cities of Balakliya, Izyum and Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region. Russia now controls only a small eastern part of the region.

Significant – albeit slower – advances by Ukrainian troops have also been reported in the southern Kherson region, which borders with Crimea – a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

UK defence officials say the Ukrainian army’s recent successes will have “significant implications” for Russia’s overall operational design.

However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has insisted that military operations in Ukraine will continue “until all the tasks that were initially set” have been fulfilled.

Russia says its forces have been carrying out strikes in those areas retaken by Ukraine in recent days.

Valerii Marchenko, mayor of Izyum, told the BBC the Ukrainian army was in his city and the state flag had been raised.

The military is now engaged in cleaning up the war-torn city and Ukrainian forces are searching for Russian soldiers potentially hiding in people’s houses.

Mr Marchenko said that after “about 10 days”, residents who had to flee the city would be able to return “safely”.

Russia has been accused of targeting civilian infrastructure in revenge for setbacks on the battlefield.

A wave of missile strikes on Sunday caused massive power cuts across north-eastern Ukraine, leaving tens of thousands of people without electricity and running water for several hours.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

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The West must prepare to continue supporting Ukraine in a war lasting for years, Nato’s chief has warned.

Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the costs of war were high, but the price of letting Moscow achieve its military goals was even greater.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also warned of a longer-term conflict.

And in a stark warning, the newly appointed head of the British Army said the UK and allies needed to be capable of winning a ground war with Russia.

Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, who started the job last week, said in an internal message seen by the BBC: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines our core purpose – to protect the UK and to be ready to fight and win wars on land – and reinforces the requirement to deter Russian aggression with the threat of force.”

Mr Stoltenberg and Mr Johnson said sending more weapons would make a victory for Ukraine more likely.

“We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine,” the Nato chief said in an interview with German newspaper Bild.

“Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices.”

The Western military alliance chief said that supplying Ukraine with more modern weapons would increase its chances of being able to liberate the country’s eastern Donbas region, much of which is currently under Russian control.

For the last few months Russian and Ukrainian forces have battled for control of territory in the country’s east – with Moscow making slow advances in recent weeks.

Writing in the Sunday Times, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused Russia’s Vladimir Putin of resorting to a “campaign of attrition” and “trying to grind down Ukraine by sheer brutality.”

“I’m afraid we need to steel ourselves for a long war,” he wrote. “Time is the vital factor. Everything will depend on whether Ukraine can strengthen its ability to defend its soil faster than Russia can renew its capacity to attack.”

The prime minister, who visited Ukraine’s capital on Friday, said supplies of weapons, equipment, ammunition, and training to Kyiv needed to outpace Moscow’s efforts to rearm itself.

BBC /Simeon Ugbodovon