KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Hundreds of Ukrainians marched through the capital Friday to demand that the government repeal a recent law that families of missing soldiers say could lead to their loved ones being prematurely declared dead.

The protesters gathered In Kyiv to oppose legislation passed in February on the legal status of missing persons that critics say allows courts to declare missing Ukrainian military personnel legally dead before their fate has been fully confirmed.

“Today all the families came out so that the missing are not equated with the dead,” said Mariana Yatselenko, 27.

More than 90,000 people are listed as missing in Ukraine’s unified registry of persons who disappeared under special circumstances, according to Artur Dobrosierdov, the country’s commissioner for missing persons.

The missing date back to 2014

Neither Russia nor Ukraine publish regular casualty numbers in the war, although analysts estimate hundreds of thousands of casualties in the fighting.

The Ukrainian register covers people who went missing during combat, as a result of armed aggression or in occupied territories, mostly after Russia’s all-out invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022. But some cases date back to 2014, when Russian soldiers invaded the Crimean Peninsula and pro-Russia forces started fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The registry began operating in May 2023, and at that point, information about both military personnel and civilians from previous years was entered into it.

Similar demonstrations have been held previously over the issue.

Russia says Ukraine struck a dorm, killing 6

Ukrainian drones hit a college dormitory building in Starobilsk, a city in Ukraine’s Russia-occupied Luhansk region, killing six people and wounding 39 others, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. He added that another 15 remain missing as emergency workers are clearing the debris.

Speaking at a meeting with war veterans in Moscow, Putin denounced the attack on the dormitory as a “crime” and ordered the military to submit its proposals for retaliation. He noted that there were no military or law enforcement facilities near the college.

Later in the evening, Putin called Russia's Security Council meeting to discuss the attack on Starobilsk.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting on the strike on Friday at the request of Russia.

During that session, Melnyk Andrii, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.N., blasted and refuted his Russian counterparts’ accusations of war crimes, calling them a “pure propaganda show.”

“Such false accusations belong to a textbook disinformation campaign from Moscow designed to deflect from its own war crimes and manipulate international public opinion,” Andrii told the 15-member council.

He added that the May 22 operations “exclusively targeted the Russian war machine” with strikes neutralizing an oil refinery, “which was fueling occupation forces, ammunition depots, air defense assets, and also command centers.”

The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday said that it intercepted 217 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions, including the Moscow region and St. Petersburg, the country’s second-largest city.

For the fourth time this month Ukraine struck Russia’s Yaroslavl oil refinery, around 700 kilometers (440 miles) from the border, in an overnight operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday.

Ukraine has been pounding Russian oil facilities in an effort to deny Moscow funding for its invasion.

U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting have brought no significant results and recently appeared to peter out.

“They were not fruitful, unfortunately,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of negotiations over the past year with Russia and Ukraine.

No talks are happening now, he said during a trip to Sweden, although they could resume if Washington sees an opportunity for progress.

Zelenskyy had a call Friday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to brief them on the progress made in recent weeks, according to Starmer's office. The leaders agreed that “standing up to Russian aggression remains vital for European and global security, and reaffirmed their commitment to securing a just and lasting peace for Ukraine," the office said.

Russian barrages as Ukraine makes battlefield gains

Ukraine’s air force said that it shot down or jammed 115 of 124 Russian drones that were launched overnight, in regular bombardments of civilian areas that in recent months have escalated.

Russian attacks across the northern Sumy region wounded 11 people, including a child, the National Police said. Also, a Russian drone killed a man in the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, according to the region’s military administration chief.

The number of Ukrainian civilian casualties verified by the United Nations increased by 21% in the first four months of this year, compared with the same period last year, with 815 civilians killed and 4,174 wounded.

In Washington, the Trump administration approved a modest $108 million arms sale to Ukraine that will help the country sustain its midrange air defense missile system.

The U.S. State Department announced the sale of ground-to-air Hawk missile components, spare parts and logistic support late Thursday. Under U.S. President Donald Trump, Washington has slashed military support for Ukraine.

On the battlefield, Ukrainian counterattacks have driven the Russian army out of more than 400 square kilometers (150 square miles) of southern Ukraine since the end of last year, Western analysts say.

Those successes are attributed to Ukraine’s increasingly homegrown drone and missile technology, as well as Russian forces being denied access to Starlink satellite services used to steer drones toward targets.

Ukraine keeps a wary eye on Belarus

Zelenskyy said that Russia could be planning new attacks on northern Ukraine, launched from Belarus.

Moscow “is eager to draw (Belarus) deeper into this war,” Zelenskyy said on social media, warning that “there will be consequences” for the Belarusian government, if it provides a platform for strikes on Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha alerted allies at a NATO meeting in Sweden about what Ukrainian intelligence services say are growing threats from Belarus. Sybiha urged partners to take unspecified deterrence measures against Minsk.

Russia and Belarus held joint nuclear exercises earlier this week.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, underscored “Russia’s ability to leverage Belarus for future Russian military operations and Russia’s deepening de facto control over Belarus.”

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Matthew Lee in Washington, Farnoush Amiri in New York and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine