KIEV — Russian forces fired eight rockets at the Yavoriv military range 30 kilometers northwest of Lviv in western Ukraine, expanding its offensive closer to the border with Poland.

Moscow is trying to create new puppet republics in Ukraine similar to the two in Donbas to break his country apart, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation Saturday.

In another ceasefire violation, seven Ukrainian civilians, including a child, died when the Russian army shelled a humanitarian convoy of refugees near Kyiv and forced them to turn back, Ukrainian authorities claim.

Russian forces carried an attack on a military range near Lviv, expanding the offensive to western Ukraine. The humanitarian crisis worsens as gas, water and electricity shortages continue to affect the residents of many cities, including the besieged southern port of Mariupol.

Ukrainian authorities again accused Russia of violating the ceasefire agreement and opening fire on "humanitarian corridors". Just nine of 14 agreed-upon corridors were open on Saturday, with 13,000 people evacuated on them around the country.

At least 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine in the two weeks since Russia invaded it, UNHCR said.

Italian state radio says a bus carrying about 50 refugees from Ukraine has overturned on a major highway in northern Italy, killing a passenger and injuring several others, none of them seriously.

RAI radio said one woman died, and the rest of those aboard the bus were safely evacuated after the accident early Sunday near Forli’. It wasn’t immediately clear where the bus was headed.

Some 35,000 Ukrainian refugees who fled the war have entered Italy, most of them through its northeastern border with Slovenia.

Forli’ is in the region of Emilia-Romagna, which borders the Adriatic Sea and has taken in some 7,000 refugees. The accident is under investigation.

Russia is trying to create new “pseudo-republics” in Ukraine to break his country apart, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation Saturday.

Zelenskyy called on Ukraine’s regions, including Kherson, which was captured by Russian forces, not to repeat the experience of Donetsk and Luhansk. Pro-Russian separatists began fighting Ukrainian forces in those eastern regions in 2014.

“The occupiers on the territory of the Kherson region are trying to repeat the sad experience of the formation of pseudo-republics,” Zelenskyy said. “They are blackmailing local leaders, putting pressure on deputies, looking for someone to bribe.”

City council members in Kherson, a southern city of 290,000, on Saturday rejected plans for a new pseudo-republic, Zelenskyy said.

Seven Ukrainian civilians, including a child, died when the Russian army shelled a humanitarian convoy of refugees and forced them to turn back, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said.

The seven were among hundreds of people who tried to flee the village of Peremoha, 20 kilometres northeast of Kiev. An unknown number of people were wounded in the shelling, the report added.

Moscow has said it would establish humanitarian corridors out of conflict zones, but Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of disrupting those paths and firing on civilians. — Euronews