Russia pounds Kharkiv for second night in row, Ukraine says

(Reuters) - Russia bombed the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine for the second night in row, injuring two people, sparking fires and damaging a kindergarten and private houses, Ukrainian officials said early on Monday.

The attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, lasted most of the night and hit the city's largest and oldest district, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

"The sixth explosion in Kharkiv," Terekhov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app at 0255 GMT on Monday.

It was not clear what was targeted in the attacks that came a week after a U.S.-brokered partial ceasefire on strikes on energy and Black Sea infrastructure. Both sides have accused each other of breaking the moratorium.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday said Moscow had fired more than 1,000 drones in the past week and called for a response from the U.S. and other allies. Russia said Ukraine's drones attacked energy facilities last week.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has waged a bloody and brutal three-year war. Both sides deny targeting civilians, saying their attacks are aimed t destroying each other's infrastructure crucial to war efforts.

Over the weekend a Russian drone strike on Kharkiv killed two people and wounded 35, Ukrainian official said.

Oleh Sinehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, said on Monday that the overnight attacks followed a late Sunday missile strike on the city of Kupiansk that left three injured and demolished more than 10 houses and a local cemetery.

Kupiansk, east of Kharkiv, was seized by Russia early in the invasion of Ukraine and recaptured by Ukrainian troops later that year. It has now come under new, intense Russian pressure.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the attacks.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Michael Perry)