The Ukrainian capital Kyiv has been hit by explosions from a wave of kamikaze drones, the head of the Ukrainian president’s staff says.
At least three explosions were heard in Kyiv early on Monday (local time), after air raid sirens went off.
The blasts rocked the central Shevchenkivskiy district of Kyiv, Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said on Telegram. He urged people to stay in air raid shelters.
“Rescuers are on the site,” he said on Telegram, adding that as a result of what he said was a drone attack early on Monday, a fire also broke out in a non-residential building.
The head of Ukraine’s state railway, Alexander Kamyshin, said there was shelling near Kyiv’s central station.
There was no immediate information on casualties.
The BBC’s Paul Adams, who is in Kyiv, said the explosions happened about 7am local time (3pm AEDT).
There were some reports on Monday of attacks on infrastructure in Ukraine’s Sumy and Dnepropetrovsk regions.
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Andriy Yermak, head of President Vlodomyr Zelensky’s staff, said the attacks were carried out with so-called suicide drones.
“Russians think this will help them, but such actions are just their convulsions,” Mr Yermak wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine has reported a spate of Russian attacks with Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones in recent weeks. Iran denies supplying the drones to Russia, while the Kremlin has not commented.
Russia denies targeting civilians in what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Monday’s blasts came a week after Moscow unleashed a wave of missiles on major Ukrainian cities. They were deadly revenge for the explosion that disabled Russia’s prized Crimean bridge, which Moscow blames on Ukraine.
Those strikes – which also targeted the Shevchenkivskiy district – left 19 dead.
Russia said last week’s attacks were aimed at energy infrastructure, but the weapons also tore into busy intersections, parks and tourist sites in the capital Kyiv.
Explosions were reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in Ukraine’s west, Dnipro and Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east.
A day later, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev warned “there will be others” as long as Ukraine posed a “constant, direct and clear threat to Russia”.
“Therefore, in addition to protecting our people and protecting the country’s borders, the goal of our future actions, in my opinion, should be the complete dismantling of the political regime of Ukraine,” he posted on Telegram.
However, the blasts were widely condemned in the West. US President Joe Biden said the missile strikes “once again demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr Putin’s illegal war on the Ukrainian people”.
Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles, was with Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko when last week’s “appalling” missile offensive was launched.
“The sense of heartbreak was really palpable,” he told Sky News.
At the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin said there was no need for more massive strikes on Ukraine. He said most designated targets of the latest barrage of strikes had been hit, adding that it was not his aim to destroy Ukraine.
“There’s no need for massive strikes. We now have other tasks,” he said.
