Three people have been killed in Russian artillery fire near the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman, Ukrainian authorities say.

Two people were also wounded in the strikes which hit the villages of Torkse and Zakitne.

The area is close to the front line and regularly comes under attack.

Elsewhere, there have been reports of explosions in the port city of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea.

The peninsula’s Russian-appointed proxy governor said the fleet was conducting firing exercises.

“Three people were killed and one wounded in Torkse, another civilian was wounded in Zakitne,” the head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram.

Torske was attacked at 18:50 local time (15:50 GMT) and Zakitne was hit half an hour later, the Donetsk regional prosecutor’s office said on Facebook.

Two women and a man, aged 63 to 88, were killed in Torkse, and they were reported to have been sitting on a bench at the time of the strike, the prosecutor’s office said.

One person in Torkse suffered injuries to their chest, shoulder and hip, it added.

A 26-year-old man suffered a fractured skull and a concussion in Zakitne, the prosecutor’s office added.

Meanwhile, four civilians were injured by mortar fire and a residential building was damaged by two drones in Seredyna-Buda, in the Sumy region of north-eastern Ukraine, the regional military administration said on Facebook.