MORE than 20 people were killed and 25 injured when a Russian air strike destroyed a school and community centre close to the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, local officials said today.

The city of Merefa came under heavy fire overnight, with missiles also striking a scientific institution. 

At least 21 people are reported to have been killed and 25 injured in the attack, which took place in the early hours.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said: “We have stronger hopes for a ceasefire” after meeting with his Ukrainian Dmytro Kuleba in Lviv.

It comes a day after he visited Moscow, with Turkey keen to position itself as a mediator and key international player.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky accused Germany of building a new “Berlin wall” between freedom and oppression in a speech delivered at the Bundestag on Wednesday.

He said the now scrapped Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was “cement for that new wall” as he slammed Germany for blocking Ukraine’s membership of the European Union, which he said was “another brick” in the wall.

“Dear Mr Scholz, tear down this wall,” the former actor said, echoing then US president Ronald Reagan’s 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.