Russian forces launched new strikes on Ukrainian cities on Saturday as Kremlin-orchestrated votes took place in occupied regions of Ukraine to create a pretext for their annexation by Moscow.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people were arrested in Russia for trying to protest a mobilization order that commits more troops to the fight in Ukraine.

Ukraine's presidential office said the latest Russian shelling killed at least three people and wounded 19.

Oleksandr Starukh, the governor of Zaporizhzhia, one of the regions in Ukraine where Moscow-installed officials organized referendums on joining Russia, said a Russian missile hit an apartment building in the city of Zaporizhzhia, killing one person and injuring seven others.

Ukraine and its Western allies say the referendums underway in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions have no legal force. They allege that the votes are an illegitimate attempt by Moscow to seize Ukrainian territory stretching from the Russian border to the Crimean Peninsula.