A dozen other people were injured, some seriously, in the attack in the city of Sumy, which has come under increased bombardment since Ukraine’s offensive into Russia’s nearby Kursk region.

Russia targeted Ukrainian energy facilities and struck civilian infrastructure in overnight attacks, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday, and a U.N. monitoring body said Moscow's strikes on the power grid probably violated humanitarian law.

The United States imposed sanctions on Thursday on a network of five groups and one person, based in Russia and the Georgian region of South Ossetia, for enabling payments between Russia and North Korea,

"The U.S. remains strongly committed to leveraging all our available tools to disrupt this and other schemes intended to support Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and enable (North Korea's) illicit access to the international financial system,

The United States has imposed sanctions against individuals and entities involved in illegal financial transactions between Russia and North Korea, according to the US Department of the Treasury. As noted by the agency,