Five bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a building hit by a Ukrainian strike in the Russian border city of Belgorod, officials said on Sunday.

The Russian defence ministry said a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile hit a "residential district" in the city after it was intercepted by air defences. 

"In total five bodies have been taken out of the rubble," Russia's emergency situations ministry said on social media, after earlier reporting that four bodies had been found.

Emergency services were quoted by the TASS news agency as saying that 20 people were also injured.

Officials said rescue work had to be repeatedly interrupted because of air raid alerts.

A video released by the Russian emergency situations ministry showed firefighters and rescuers working on a huge pile of tangled rubble.

One resident told RIA Novosti she was in a building corridor when the explosion went off and her husband was in a bedroom.

"He did not have the time" to escape, she said, adding that the man had been injured in the head and face. 

The emergency situations ministry had said earlier that 12 people, including two children, had been rescued from the rubble.

Belgorod governor Viacheslav Gladkov had posted a video to Telegram showing a collapsed building with a huge hole in it.

"Following direct shell fire on a residential building... the entire entrance, from the tenth to the ground floor, collapsed," Gladkov said, condemning "massive bombings" by the Ukrainian army. 

The emergency situations ministry warned the number of victims could rise, as part of the building roof caved in just as rescuers were searching for survivors. 

Belgorod is regularly targeted by Ukrainian drone and missile attacks. Kyiv says it is doing so to counter daily bombardments by Russian forces on Ukrainian cities since the February 2022 military offensive started. 

On December 30, 25 people were killed and about 100 injured in one attack.