At least eight people have been killed in a Russian attack on a shopping centre in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, according to local authorities.
"As a consequence of the enemy missile strike and the resulting fire, a shopping mall was destroyed, windows in the nearby residential buildings and the vehicles parked in the vicinity were damaged," the Prosecutor General said in a post in its Telegram channel.
The Prosecutor General suggested the number of fatalities could rise, adding that the number of the dead was based on preliminary information.
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The attack also ruined nearby buildings and left burnt debris strewn across several hundred metres.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said had been targeted because it was used to store rockets, claims that couldn't be independently verified.
Russian troops are now trying to surround the Ukrainian capital, which had nearly three million people before the war.
Russian troops are fighting Ukrainian forces north of Kyiv but the latest UK Ministry of Defence intelligence said that most of the Russian force remain 25 kilometres from the city centre.
In the Ukrainian city of Kherson Russian troops used live bullets and stun grenades to break up a peaceful protest by local residents.
Footage from scene shows hundreds of protesters approaching a city square before being forced to flee after gunfire breaks out.
The demonstrators were in Kherson's Freedom square at the time of the incident, Reuters reports.
"Russian security forces ran up, started throwing stun grenades into the crowd and shooting," the Ukrainian armed forces' press service said in a statement.
Russia has not commented on the incident.
There are reports several people were injured.
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EU slams 'war crimes' in Ukraine
European Union countries have accused the Russian armed forces of committing war crimes in Ukraine.
But they appeared unlikely to impose new sanctions on Moscow despite a clamour across Europe for those responsible for attacks on civilians to be held to account.
With civilian deaths mounting in the besieged port city of Mariupol, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock highlighted the increase in Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and theatres.
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"(The) courts will have to decide, but for me these are clearly war crimes," Ms Baerbock said.
Speaking before he chaired a meeting of the 27-nation bloc's foreign ministers in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said "what's happening in Mariupol is a massive war crime."
"Destroying everything, bombarding and killing everybody in an indiscriminate manner," he said.
"This is something awful."
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The encircled southern city on the Sea of Azov has seen some of the worst horrors of the war. Multiple attempts to evacuate residents from Mariupol have failed or only partly succeeded.
City officials said at least 2300 people have died in the siege, with some buried in mass graves.
Mr Borrell underlined that "war also has law".
The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands is gathering evidence about any possible war crimes in Ukraine but Russia, like the United States, doesn't recognise the tribunal's jurisdiction.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said his country is "certainly open to other mechanisms for accountability in terms of the atrocities that are taking place in Ukraine right now."
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Mr Coveney said Russia's invasion of Ukraine is probably the first "war being played out on social media, where people see images happening live, and they're outraged by it."
"This is driving a fury across the European Union within the public as to why can't we stop this," he told reporters.
"They want people held to account for the decisions taken and the brutality that we have seen."
The imposition of a new round of sanctions — asset freezes and travel bans — appears unlikely for now.
Notorious for their often slow handling of fast-moving international events, EU nations have rallied in just over three weeks since the invasion began on February 24 to slap sanctions on 877 people.
They include Russian President Vladimir Putin, senior ministers and pro-Kremlin oligarchs. A further 62 "entities" — companies, banks, airlines and ship builders — have also been hit in near record time.
But the issue of imposing restrictive measures on energy remains extremely sensitive, given the dependence of many EU countries on supplies of Russian natural gas.
A group of countries led by Germany wants a pause on new measures for now, amid concern about high energy prices and fears that Russia might halt gas exports to Europe. Some also want to save sanction ammunition for any new and major war atrocity, like the use of chemical weapons.
"We are doing everything to close loopholes in the sanctions" that have already been agreed, Ms Baerbock said.
But Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, whose country borders Russia and Belarus, warned against "sanctions fatigue".
"We cannot get tired, imposing sanctions. We cannot get tired, offering assistance and help to Ukraine," he said.
He said the EU must start thinking about what kind of attack by Russia would constitute a "red line" for tougher measures.
The shelling of cities and civilians, he said, doesn't appear to be enough to persuade some member countries "but somewhere there, there has to be one".
Mr Landsbergis also said Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia need their defences bolstered by partner countries.
"I think we need to see more equipment, and first of all the actual defence plans (for) the Baltic countries that would reflect the changed strategic reality of the region," he told reporters.
