A Russian air strike has killed 23 civilians at a pension disbursal point in a village in eastern Ukraine, officials said.

Russian troops have pressed a grinding offensive across much of the eastern Donetsk region as diplomatic efforts to achieve peace in the 3 and a half-year-old war have largely stalled.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a guided bomb had struck the village of Yarova, about 24 km from the city of Sloviansk, a Ukrainian stronghold, and several kilometres behind the front line.

"Directly on people. Ordinary civilians. At the very moment when pensions were being disbursed," he wrote on X.

The president posted video footage showing bodies strewn across the ground and debris.

23 people were killed and another 18 people were wounded, Interior Minister Ihor Klym

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