Russia attacked Kyiv with a barrage of missiles and drones overnight into Thursday, with the intense strikes causing loud explosions and shaking the Ukrainian capital for hours.
At least eight people were killed and over three dozens injured as drones and missiles struck residential buildings and started a fire in a hotel on a central boulevard.
Russia has intensified attacks on Kyiv in recent weeks even as Ukraine’s own drone campaign against Russian military sites and energy facilities has caused fuel shortages and disrupted supply lines.
The attack affected all of the city’s 10 districts on both sides of the Dnipro river. Many residents took shelter at metro stations after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and other authorities issued warnings about the attack.
Mr Zelensky had earlier warned of a possible overnight attack and said he was cutting short his visit to Dublin for the start of Ireland's six-month term in the rotating presidency of the EU.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko urged people to remain in shelters, describing an ongoing “furious enemy attack” on the capital.
Mr Klitschko said on Telegram that six floors of an apartment building collapsed after a direct hit.
In an earlier post, Mr Klitschko said the injured included paramedics and drivers at an ambulance station, and that some people were still trapped inside damaged residential buildings.
Photos posted online showed a fire burning out of control at the top of a building on the central Shevchenko Boulevard, while elsewhere in the city, windows blew out and cars were destroyed.
People carrying children, belongings, tents, and pets crowded into underground metro stations as air raid alerts rang across most of Ukraine. "Another horrific night for the residents of the city, who were forced to spend it in shelters," Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine's ambassador to the US, said in a post on X.
Neighbouring Poland, a Nato and EU member, briefly scrambled fighter aircraft on Thursday as a preventive measure before calling them back and saying no airspace violation has been recorded.
Finland, another Nato and EU member, briefly issued a temporary aviation restriction zone in the eastern Gulf of Finland before lifting it later, its defence forces said.
In the Desnianskyi district, several people were trapped inside a damaged building, Mr Klitschko said. In the Holosiivskyi district, a fire broke out on the roof of a multistorey building.
In the Sviatoshynskyi and Darnytskyi districts as well, fires broke out in several homes and people were trapped inside buildings.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said the attack partially destroyed a residential building in the Desnianskyi, sparked fires near residential buildings at two locations in the Pecherskyi district, and ignited a fire near an administrative building in Solomianskyi.
He said authorities recorded damage in the Obolonskyi and Podilskyi districts as well.
The latest Russian attack came amid intensifying Ukrainian drone attacks deeper into Russian territory. Governor Alexander Drozdenko of Russia's northwestern Leningrad region, president Vladimir Putin's home and where large export and oil refining facilities are located, said on Telegram that Russian forces brought down seven drones on Thursday.
In the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, a man was killed and his wife injured after a drone hit their home, local authorities said separately on Telegram.
Additional inputs from Reuters
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