KYIV: Ukraine stepped up attacks behind Russian lines on Wednesday with the apparent killing of a Russian election official in a car bomb and a drone assault on a metals plant.

Strikes also rocked the Ukrainian port city of Odesa during a visit by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who was holding talks in the city with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Both Russia and Ukraine have increased their aerial attacks as Moscow`s troops advance on the frontlines and Kyiv faces a shortage of manpower and weapons.

`We heard the sound of sirens and explosions that took place near us. We did not have time to get to a shelter. It is a very intense experience,` Mitsotakis said through a translator in Odesa. Zelensky said the strike had left `dead and wounded`, but he did not have figures. `You can see who we are facing. They don`t care where they strike,` he he told the joint press conference.

The apparent hit comes just days after 12 people, including five children, were killed when a Russian drone hit an apartment block in the Black Sea city, one of the deadliest attacks on civilians for weeks.

Authorities in the Russian-occupied city of Berdyansk in southern Ukraine said a local election official had been killed in a car bombing it blamed on Kyiv.

`A homemade explosive device was planted under the vehicle of a member of the precinct election commission,` the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

`The victim died from her injuries,` it added, publishing a video of a blown-out small beige car parked on a dirt track. The attack came with early voting already underway across occupied Ukraine for this month`s Russian presidentialelection.

The Moscow-installed head of the Zaporizhzhia region Yevgeny Balitsky blamed Ukrainian authorities for the attack and said they were trying to `intimidate` residents ahead of the ballot. A number of Russianinstalled officials have been targeted since Moscow launched its full-scale military operation in Ukraine two years ago.-AFP