Ukraine fired three rockets at the center of the southern city of Kherson on Wednesday night, but Russian forces, who occupy the city, shot down two of them, the RIA news agency reported, citing a security source.
A Ria correspondent on the ground had earlier reported a series of powerful explosions near the television center.
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Earlier on Wednesday, Switzerland said it was implementing more European Union sanctions against Russia and Belarus in steps designed to reduce the countries' ability to raise funds or expand their industrial capacity.
The new measures include an import ban on lignite, coal and other items such as caviar, timber and seafood which are seen as important sources of revenue for Russia. Also banned are exports to Russia of Swiss goods such as industrial robots and certain chemicals which could be used to strengthen Moscow's industrial production.
Further financial sanctions will also come into effect, including no longer allowing trusts to be registered in Switzerland for resident Russian nationals.
Switzerland, however, will be able to export special equipment to protect against nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, following a request for help from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The government further banned the export of banknotes and sales of securities in all EU currencies to Belarusian nationals or residents. Previously the ban covered only securities and bank notes in Swiss francs and euros.
As the Russia-Ukraine war entered its 63rd day on Wednesday, the European Commission, which oversees trade policy in the 27-nation bloc, proposed a one-year suspension of import duties on all Ukrainian goods not covered by an existing free trade deal in order to help the country's economy during the war.
The measures will apply in particular to fruit and vegetables, subject to minimum price requirements, agricultural products facing quotas, and certain industrial goods, tariffs on which were only due to be phased out by the end of 2022.
That phase-out, set out in the 2016 EU-Ukraine free trade agreement, applies to fertilizers, aluminum products and cars.
The bloc will also exempt Ukraine from safeguard measures that limit steel imports, and lift anti-dumping tariffs the EU currently imposes on Ukrainian steel tubes, hot-rolled flat steel products and ironing boards.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had discussed the proposal with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday and expressed his gratitude.
"Right now this will allow us to maintain economic activity in Ukraine, our national production, as much as possible. But this decision needs to be considered not only in the Ukrainian context," he said in a late-night video address. "Sufficient export of our products to European and global markets will be a significant tool against crises."
The proposal is subject to approval by the European Parliament and EU governments.
Meanwhile, Polish and Bulgarian leaders accused Moscow of using natural gas to blackmail their countries after Russia's state-controlled energy company stopped supplying them with gas. EU leaders echoed those comments and held an emergency meeting on the Russian move.
The gas cutoff to Poland and Bulgaria came after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that "unfriendly" countries would need to start paying for gas in rubles, Russia's currency, which Bulgaria and Poland refused to do.
Russian energy giant Gazprom said in a statement that it had not eeceived any payments from Poland and Bulgaria since April 1 and was suspending their deliveries starting Wednesday. And if those countries siphon off Russian gas intended for other European customers, Gazprom said deliveries to Europe will be reduced by that amount.
The European Commission president said the announcement by Gazprom "is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail."
Europe is not without some leverage in the dispute, since it pays Russia $400 million a day for gas, money Putin would lose with a complete cutoff.
Russia, however, rejected the idea that it was using blackmail while warning it may halt gas supplies to other European customers if they also refuse to switch to paying in rubles.
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, argued that the Russian demand to switch to paying for gas in rubles resulted from Western actions that froze Russian hard currency assets. He said those were effectively "stolen" by the West in an "unprecedented unfriendly action."
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told Poland's parliament that he thinks the suspension was revenge for new sanctions against Russia that Warsaw imposed over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Morawiecki called it an "attack on Poland" and an example of "gas imperialism" while vowing that his country would not be cowed by the cutoff. He said Poland was safe from an energy crisis thanks to years of efforts to secure gas from other countries.
"We will not succumb to Russia's gas blackmail," he told lawmakers, to applause. He also sought to assure citizens that the gas cutoff would not affect Polish households.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, whose government has been cutting many of the country's old ties with Russia, called Gazprom's suspension of gas deliveries "a gross violation of their contract" and "blackmail." He vowed to defend the country's interests and "support military-technical assistance to Ukraine."
"Unfortunately, in the recent past we were treated as Russia's fifth column. And there are many political and economic circles that protect Russia's interests," he said. "We and our party will protect only Bulgarian interests."
In Bulgaria, the main consumers of gas are district heating companies. Bulgaria's energy minister said his country can meet the needs of users for at least one month.
"Alternative supplies are available, and Bulgaria hopes that alternative routes and supplies will also be secured at the EU level," Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov said.
Russia's move raised wider concerns that other countries could be targeted next as Western countries increase their support for Ukraine amid the war.
The Greek government held an emergency meeting on Wednesday in Athens. Greece's next scheduled payment to Gazprom is due on May 25, and the government must decide whether it will comply with the demand to pay in rubles.
Greece is ramping up its liquefied natural gas storage capacity, and has contingency plans to switch several industry sectors from gas to diesel as an emergency energy source. It has also reversed a program to reduce domestic coal production.
If European nations decide not to pay in rubles, Russia can sell its oil elsewhere, such as India and China. Moscow has less options with natural gas, because the pipeline network that carries gas from Russia's huge deposits in northwestern Siberia's Yamal Peninsula does not connect with pipelines that run to China. And Russia only has limited facilities to export super-chilled liquefied gas by ship.
In addition, some reports estimated that Russia may see its oil production fall by as much as 17% in 2022.
The United States has banned Russian oil imports, while Western sanctions against Russian banks and vessels had crippled the oil trade, one of Moscow's key sources of revenue. The European Union is also considering fully banning Russian oil.
The scale of the production decline would be the most significant since the 1990s when the oil industry suffered from underinvestment.
Russian oil output started to decline in March and had fallen by around 7.5% by mid-April.
Oil production in Russia recovered last year following a decline in 2021, its first annual fall since 2008, due to fallout from the pandemic.
The International Energy Agency has said the impact of sanctions and buyers' aversion to Russian oil would take full effect from May onwards.
Russian oil output may decline to between 433.8 million and 475.3 million tons (between 8.68 million and 9.5 million barrels per day) in 2022 from 524 million tons in 2021.
That would be the lowest since 2003, when Russian oil output stood at 421 million tons.
Exports of oil and gas are also expected to fall this year. Oil exports are seen declining to between 213.3 million and 228.3 million tons (4.27 million to 4.57 million bpd) from 231 million tons in 2021.
In related news, Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney urged countries at the United Nations on Wednesday to focus on international justice for war crimes in Ukraine so evidence does not sit in storage – as she said it had done for victims of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
"Ukraine is, today, a slaughterhouse. Right in the heart of Europe," Clooney told an informal UN Security Council meeting on accountability in Ukraine, organized by France and Albania.
Clooney recalled a 2017 Security Council vote to approve a measure she helped lobby for – the creation of a UN team to collect, preserve and store evidence of possible international crimes committed by Islamic State in Iraq. It was the same year her son and daughter with US actor George Clooney were born.
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"My children are now almost 5, and so far most of the evidence collected by the UN is in storage – because there is no international court to put ISIS on trial," she said.
The International Criminal Court, which handles war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and crimes of aggression, has no jurisdiction because Iraq and Syria are not members.
Clooney is part of an international legal task force advising Ukraine on securing accountability for Ukrainian victims in national jurisdictions and working with the Hague-based ICC.
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan opened an investigation into Ukraine a week after Russia's Feb. 24 invasion.
"This is a time when we need to mobilize the law and send it into battle. Not on the side of Ukraine against the Russian Federation, or on the side of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, but on the side of humanity," Khan told the UN meeting.
Russian diplomat Sergey Leonidchenko described the ICC as a "political instrument." He accused the United States and Britain of hypocrisy for supporting the ICC inquiry in Ukraine after doing "everything imaginable to shield their own military."
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova's office has told Reuters it was preparing war crimes charges against at least seven Russian military personnel.
