RUSSIA HAS TARGETED more than 40 villages around Ukraine over 24 hours, killing at least two people and sustaining the terror that forces people into air raid shelters each night.

Russian forces launched five rockets, 30 air strikes and more than 100 multiple-launch rocket system attacks on Ukrainian targets, according to Ukrainian armed forces general staff.

The attacks come amid growing fears that Russia, facing setbacks on the battlefield, could try to detonate a device that uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste in an effort to sow terror.

Russia’s defence minister called his counterparts from India and China to convey Moscow’s concern about a purported Ukrainian plan to use such a so-called “dirty bomb”, repeating an allegation that Ukraine and the West have strongly refuted.

People collect bread from a humanitarian aid centre in Kramatorsk, Ukraine (Andriy Andriyenko/AP)

Defence minister Sergei Shoigu voiced Moscow’s concern about “possible Ukrainian provocations involving a ‘dirty bomb’ in the calls with his Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, and China’s Wei Fenghe, according to the Russian Defence Ministry.

The conversations followed Shoigu’s calls with British, French, Turkish and US counterparts on Sunday in which he made the same claim. Britain, France, and the United States rejected that claim as “transparently false”.

Despite the Western dismissal of the Russian claims, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted that “we have the information that there is an ongoing preparation in Ukraine for such a terror attack”.

“We will continue to energetically inform the global community about what we know to persuade it to take action to prevent such irresponsible action by the regime in Kyiv,” Peskov told reporters.

Women buy vegetables at a local market in Dnipro, Ukraine (Leo Correa/AP)

A Ukrainian official reported on Wednesday that a Russian strike hit a petrol station in the city of Dnipro, killing two people, including a pregnant woman.

The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Valentyn Reznichenko, said four people were injured and taken to hospital.

Mykolaiv, a southern port city near the war’s front line, is among the places where residents have queued up to receive rations of bread and tinned food as increases in food prices and losses of income add to the burdens of low-income households in Ukraine.

Several buildings and neighbourhoods were struck in Mykolaiv yesterday, though it was still unclear if there were any casualties, according to local authorities.

Missiles continued early this morning.

The sole food distribution point in Mykolaiv allows each person to receive free bread once every three days. Many must walk long distances to collect the essential food items for their family.