Lithuanians voted on Sunday in a presidential election expected to hand a new term to incumbent Gitanas Nauseda, a staunch supporter of Ukraine in its two-year war with Russia, following a campaign focusing on security concerns in the Baltic states.

Polls closed with results expected after midnight. Turnout was 59 per cent, the highest in nearly three decades, according the election commission web page.

If no candidate wins more than 50 per cent – which is likely according to pre-election opinion surveys – a run-off vote will be held on May 26.

Nauseda, 59, a former senior economist at a top bank, was polling with the support of 29 per cent of voters ahead of the election, a recent Delfi/Spinter Tyrimai survey showed. His strongest challenger was Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, 49, the only woman running, with 14% of support.

Across the region, voters are worried the former Soviet republics that make up the Baltics, now members of the NATO military alliance and the European Union, could be the targets of Russian aggression in the future.

Just over half of Lithuanians believe a Russian attack is possible or even very likely, a ELTA/Baltijos Tyrimai poll has found. Lithuanian intelligence said in March Russia was on track to strengthen its military capabilities along its border with at NATO.

A Ukrainian refugee couple who fled to the UK have been refused permission for their two-year-old daughter to join them after the government suddenly changed its sponsorship rules, The Independent can reveal.

Oleksandra and Yaroslav were offered shelter from Russia’s war under the Homes for Ukraine scheme in April 2022, leaving newborn Anna with her grandparents in Kyiv until they were settled in the UK with work and their own home.

Multiple people have been killed and more than a dozen wounded after a 10-storey apartment block in the Russian region of Belgorod collapsed – in what the Kremlin claimed, without providing evidence, was a Ukrainian missile strike.

The region, which shares a border with the Ukrainian oblast of Kharkiv, has been hit several times over the past few months as Russian forces continue to attack across the border.

A Russian apartment block has collapsed following an explosion in Belgorod, as rescuers search the rubble for survivors.

At least 17 people have been injured in the Russian city near the border with Ukraine after an apartment block partially collapsed following an explosion.

Footage from broadcaster RU-24 showed rescuers searching for survivors among the remnants of the building’s stairwell, then fleeing the scene as part of the roof crashed to the ground.

Russia has blamed a Ukrainian shell for the incident.

While Ukraine has not commented, it has previously said its attacks do not target civilians.

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has said that the situation in Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region is “extremely dangerous”.

Russian forces have opened up a second front this weekend in northeastern Ukraine, nearly two years after Ukrainian forces liberated the region.

More than 4,000 civilians have been evacuated from frontier towns within a few miles of the Russian border as small, infantry-led Kremlin units advanced across it, into the Kharkiv region. Already, several civilians have been killed as Russian forces shelled the towns. The village of Vovchansk has been particularly badly hit.

Meanwhile, in the Russian region of Belgorod neighbouring Kharkiv, a multi-storey apartment block has collapsed, killing multiple people, in what the Kremlin is trying to blame on Kyiv.

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