KYIV (Reuters) -Russian guided bombs shattered an apartment building in Ukraine’s second-largest city on Saturday, killing three people, injuring 52 and prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to call for more help to deal with the growing threat of such weapons.

Pictures posted online showed parts of the five-storey apartment building in ruins, with windows smashed, balconies wrecked and rubble strewn about a crater on the ground.

Prosecutors in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region put the casualty toll at three dead and 52 injured in the mid-afternoon attack, including three injured children. Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said four of those hurt were in serious condition.

“This Russian terror through guided bombs must be stopped and can be stopped,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.

“We need strong decisions from our partners to enable us to stop the Russian terrorists and Russian military aviation right where they are.”

Later, in his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said Russian forces had used more than 2,400 guided bombs on Ukrainian targets in June alone, with about 700 aimed at Kharkiv.

He said after U.S. Congress gave delayed approval of a big aid package in April, Ukraine’s replenished arms supplies had reduced the devastation and frequency of missile attacks and the same had to be done now to fend off these bombs.

“The significant reduction in Russian missile terror against Kharkiv and the region proves it is entirely possible to secure our cities and communities from Russian bombs,” he said.

Ukraine, he said, needed promised military aid packages “without delay so that the agreements we reached with (U.S.) President Biden can be realised.”

Ukraine and the U.S. signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement this month aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s defense against Russia and getting Ukraine closer to NATO membership.

Russia has relied increasingly on relatively inexpensive guided bombs, dropped from a distance and involving fewer risks for its forces.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has advanced slowly through Donetsk region in the east, capturing a string of villages since seizing the key industrial town of Avdiivka more than three months ago.

It launched a cross-border incursion north of Kharkiv last month, though Zelenskiy says the situation there has stabilised.

In the latest bomb attack, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said there had been four strikes on Kharkiv.

Regional governor Syniehubov said rescue work was proceeding at the building, which housed a store on the ground floor.

Kharkiv Police Chief Serhiy Bolvinov told public broadcaster Suspilne that three floors had collapsed, but he believed no one was trapped under the rubble.

Kharkiv lies about 30 km (20 miles) from the border with Russia. The city of 1.3 million people has frequently been targeted in Russian attacks during nearly 28 months of war.

Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians but thousands have been killed and injured in the war.

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The remaking of post-industrial Manchester ranks among the most remarkable English economic stories of recent decades. Sir Howard Bernstein was its chief author.

As chief executive of Manchester council, Bernstein, who died on Saturday aged 71 after a short illness, spearheaded a generation of imaginative civic leadership, providing a template for other towns and cities seeking to shake off the blight of 1970s and 1980s decline. 

Bernstein’s reach and reputation extended well beyond that of a conventional town hall official and he was described by former chancellor George Osborne as “the star of British local government”. A consummate fixer and dealmaker, his relentless pragmatism took him into any realm he deemed opportune, from the corridors of Whitehall to the palaces of Middle Eastern sheikhs, in later years usually sporting a trademark scarf and sovereign rings.

Bernstein’s singular ability to cajole, persuade and adapt would ultimately change the face of his city.

Born in April 1953 to Jewish parents in the multicultural north Manchester suburb of Cheetham Hill, Bernstein’s path to the top of English civic leadership was rare then and even rarer now. Joining the town hall straight out of school in 1971 as a junior clerk, he served in its neo-gothic environs for nearly half a century, rising up the ranks to become chief executive between 1998 and 2017. 

His early years in the town hall were formative. By the end of the decade, Manchester and its surrounding towns were losing 121 manufacturing jobs every working day and the conurbation’s raison d’être was unclear. “We’d just lost our way,” Bernstein said. 

By the mid-1980s, Manchester’s political leadership had been replaced by a new generation of Labour councillors, impatient for change. The city’s leaders, first under Graham Stringer and later Richard Leese, concluded that pragmatism — including dialogue with their Conservative opponents in Westminster — was essential to economic revival. 

Bernstein’s skills proved critical. The 1986 acquisition of Manchester airport by the conurbation’s 10 councils was spearheaded by the young officer, still in his early 30s. The early-90s rebuild of the inner-city slums in Hulme, a project backed by then-Conservative minister Michael Heseltine, came to be seen as one of Europe’s foremost urban regeneration successes. Bernstein called it one of his proudest achievements. 

By the time an IRA bomb devastated Manchester’s central business district in 1996, Bernstein — and Leese, who had taken over the political reins a few days before the explosion, the two men forming a partnership that would endure for 20 years — was able to put Hulme’s lessons to good use. Always keen to move forward, Bernstein tended not to talk extensively about the rebuild but admitted in 2017 that piecing together the necessary property deals had represented his “biggest intellectual challenge”.

Bernstein went on to help secure not only the 2002 Commonwealth Games, but its legacy, too, negotiating his beloved Manchester City’s move to the stadium built for the games. When the football club was bought by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, Bernstein used Manchester City as an anchor for the regeneration of the surrounding post-industrial area. 

His relentless pursuit of delivery inspired respect, confidence and some measure of awe across sectors. Knighted in 2003 for his services to the city, his message to the private sector and government alike was the same: Manchester was open for business. 

Not every gamble paid off. He admitted an attempt to introduce a congestion charge in a bid to raise public transport investment — a move rejected by referendum in 2008 — had misread the room. During the austerity years that followed 2010, meanwhile, the city’s children’s department failed and homelessness soared.

Bernstein maintained, nevertheless, that reviving Manchester’s economy was critical to the fortunes of the city’s poor. As Osborne settled into the Treasury, Bernstein helped convince him of the untapped economic opportunity presented by northern England, securing for Greater Manchester the first English devolution deal outside of London in 2014. 

By the time he retired, much of Manchester looked dramatically different to the post-industrial wasteland that formed the backdrop to Bernstein’s early career. Foreign investment poured into the city centre, the population boomed and the conurbation showed early signs of starting to close its productivity gap with London. 

When he was asked at his retirement how he managed to persuade people to go along with his ideas, Bernstein was characteristically forthright.

“I put the city first,” he said. “I make clear if you don’t want to do it, make way for somebody who does.”

Bernstein lived a few miles from where he was born, in Prestwich, Bury, until his death. He leaves behind his wife, Vanessa, two children and three stepchildren. 

Fast-fashion brand PrettyLittleThing (PLT) is facing criticism from customers who have had their accounts with the company deactivated because of the number of times they have returned their purchases.

In an email seen by the BBC, shoppers were told on Friday that their accounts had been reviewed and shut down so they would not be able to place any further orders.

Some of those affected have used social media to criticise the new policy, claiming they had only made one return so far this year, or suggesting they would return fewer items if the firm was more consistent in its sizing of clothing items.

PLT did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

The online retailer, which is part of the Boohoo Group, had come under fire earlier this month after scrapping its free returns policy.

One PLT customer branded the latest move a “joke” and said returns would not be necessary if the sizing and the quality of the clothing was not “awful”.

Posting on X, they said: “You don’t have a physical store, [of course] people will return things.”

Another wrote that they had received the email telling them their account was being deactivated despite the fact their last return to the company was three months ago.

On TikTok, videos of shoppers questioning why their accounts have been suspended have also received hundreds of likes.

It was not immediately clear what criteria the company used for its decisions.

Becca Unsworth, a 24-year-old pensions administrator from Preston, told the BBC that she was “appalled” after her account was suspended.

Initially, she was not sure whether the email had been sent to her in error.

However, on Saturday morning she says she was informed by a PLT customer service adviser that it was genuine.

She describes herself as a loyal customer for the last seven years: “I go to PLT for everything really – something for work, a new top for a night out, hair stuff, beauty products. I spent so much money there.

“I do return but it’s due to the fact something may arrive faulty or I need to order an item in three different sizes to make sure it fits at all,” she said, describing the brand’s sizing as “terrible”.

Becca had also paid the £9.99 fee to access PLT’s “Royalty” scheme for unlimited deliveries in the UK for a year.

But she has been told with her account being deactivated, the company will not provide her with a refund or partial refund.

She adds that the experience has “put [her] off shopping there ever again” and now she will opt for the likes of Asos or Shein.

Sophie Smith, a 26-year-old PLT shopper from Norwich, said that she thought the message received was a “joke” initially.

She has been a member of its “Royalty” delivery scheme since it was first offered and opts for PLT for outfits for bottomless brunches, weddings or nights out.

She told the BBC she has only made one return to PLT this year, and added that she felt the latest development showed the company “doesn’t value their customers”.

In the email, PLT apologised for any inconvenience caused and pointed out that shoppers would still be able to make returns via its online portal.

PLT is part of the Boohoo Group, which was founded by Mahmud Kamani and retail executive Carol Kane in 2006.

The brand started out as an accessories-only outfit, with a focus on on-trend, low-cost pieces.

It was co-founded and headed up by Umar Kamani, one of Mahmud Kamani’s sons, who drove the brand’s collaborations with the likes of supermodel Naomi Campbell and influencer Molly-May Hague, as well as its expansion in the US.

While it has come under the spotlight for its working practices, the Boohoo Group was one of the big winners of the pandemic, as online retailers thrived.

However, it has since faced several challenges with the rate of returns normalising, rising competition from ultra-fast fashion brands like Shein, and customer budgets being squeezed during the cost-of-living crisis.

Customers vented their frustration recently when PLT decided to introduce a £1.99 fee for returns, including for those members of its “Royalty” service.

High Street giants such as Zara, Uniqlo and Next already charge for online returns, while PLT rival OhPolly recently introduced a policy where the greater the amount of an order returned, the higher the return fee.

Instead of a flat fee, shoppers now face an £8.99 return fee for returning every item they order, versus £2.99 for less than half of the items, for example.

Analysts have said, however, that retailers are facing cost pressures themselves, which mean they need to introduce these charges or put prices up.

For fashion retailers, covering the cost of returns can be expensive and they have to consider the environmental impact of using delivery trucks for this purpose too.

More have been opting to shift costs on to customers as a result, as well as clamping down on returns by introducing stricter inspections to spot when clothes have been worn for an occasion and sent back after one use.