Kiev ( Ukraine ) - (AFP) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday called on the international community to make financial efforts to cover the expected budget deficit for his country next year, amounting to $38 billion, due to the Russian invasion.

Meanwhile, Russian heavy bombardment targeted the city of Bakhmut, located in the Donbass region (east), where AFP correspondents saw the smoke of fierce battles rising between Moscow's forces and the Ukrainian army, which is trying to repel them.

The pro-Russian authorities in the city of Melitopol in southern Ukraine, which is currently controlled by Moscow forces, said that a car bomb exploded near the offices of a local media, wounding five people.

During an international conference devoted to the reconstruction of Ukraine, Zelensky urged European leaders to provide greater financial support to his country, more than eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his forces to Ukraine.

"At this very conference, a decision should be taken on aid covering Ukraine's budget deficit next year," Zelensky said in a video call, adding, "It is a very large amount, a deficit of 38 billion dollars."

For his part, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the reconstruction of Ukraine will be a "generational task" that should begin immediately, even if the Russian invasion continues.

And he believed that the matter "is nothing less than a new Marshall Plan for the twenty-first century, a generational task that must begin now."

Pushed back from Kiev at the start of the invasion and from the Kharkiv region to the north-east, Russian forces set their sights on capturing swaths of the Donbass, the industrial region to the east.

In Bakhmut, a town that the Russians have been seeking to control for weeks, an AFP correspondent saw smoke rising despite the heavy rain, and a Ukrainian missile shooting down a Russian drone.

A 28-year-old soldier, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, told AFP that Ukrainian forces had made gains in the area overnight, but declined to provide further details.

Seven civilians were killed and three injured in the town known for making wine and salt mines a day earlier, the regional governor announced on Tuesday.

Governor Pavlo Kirilenko confirmed the discovery of the bodies of three civilians killed earlier, in two locations in the region, which has been witnessing intense fighting with the Russian army for months.

In a residential neighborhood in Bakhmut, AFP correspondents saw bloodstains on the ground in the aftermath of what residents described as a bloody attack a day earlier.

"I saw here a body without a head. I am shocked," said Sergey, 58, adding, "It was just a man walking down the street."

Donetsk, the region to the east and includes Bakhmut, is one of four Ukrainian regions declared annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and applying martial law.

However, the Ukrainian forces were able to a large extent to repel Moscow's advance towards Bakhmut, while in the Kherson region (south) it is getting closer to its largest city.

Russian-backed authorities said on Tuesday that more than 22,000 citizens had fled the town and nearby areas to the left bank of the Dnipro River, following calls to turn away from the Ukrainian advance.

On the road to Kherson from Ukrainian-controlled areas, two friends, who had worked before the war as bus drivers, sat in a ditch.

One of them, 51, said, "We go that way under fire and we come back that way under gunfire."

The sunflower fields do not provide a cache of the Russian bombs and missiles that the two men were expecting to fall any minute.

A 40-kilometre road from Mykolaiv, which is controlled by government forces, to Kherson, occupied by Russian forces, will be necessary for Ukraine's efforts to restore the link to the Sea of Azov and cut off Russia's land connection to Crimea.

Further east, in Melitopol, Russian-appointed authorities announced that a car bomb exploded, injuring five people, near the offices of the media group Zamedia. Pictures showed a gray building with its windows blown out and smoldering rubble on the ground.

There was no confirmation or denial from Kiev of the responsibility of its forces for the bombing.

"This is what heating should be like in the premises of the conspirators and propagandists. And it will get hotter," the exiled Ukrainian authorities of Melitopol said on social media.

Kiev officials hinted on social media of official Ukrainian support for previous attacks in Moscow-controlled areas, including an attack earlier this month on the only bridge linking Russia with Moscow-annexed Crimea.