Five people have been injured in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv as Russia launches a fresh wave of drone strikes across the country.
Air raid sirens and explosions were heard in Kyiv and in the western city of Odesa, officials have said, just a day before Russia's Victory Day on Tuesday, May 9.
The annual holiday commemorates the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany during World War Two and will include a parade of the country's military firepower.
President Vladimir Putin, in his speech during the parade, is likely to praise the Red Army’s determination to wipe out Nazism and to repeat his assertion that Russia is taking the moral high ground by fighting an alleged Nazi regime in Ukraine, a country with a Jewish president.
The Ukrainian military said today's morning raids - which lasted for more than four hours and were launched shortly after midnight - saw Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones swarm across the country.
Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 60 drones had been launched with at least 36 had been destroyed.
It was falling debris from the drones that hit and injured civilians.
Elsewhere, anxiety about the safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant is growing after the Moscow-installed governor of the Ukrainian region where it is located ordered civilian evacuations, including from the city where most plant workers live.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi has spent months trying to persuade Russian and Ukrainian officials to establish a security zone around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to prevent the war from causing a radiation leak.
The evacuations ordered by the Russia-backed governor of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia province, Yegeny Balitsky, raised fears that fighting in the area would intensify.
On Friday Mr Balitsky ordered civilians to leave 18 Russian-occupied communities, including Enerhodar, home to most of the plant staff.
More than 1,500 people had been evacuated from two unspecified cities in the region as of Sunday, Balitsky said. The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed the evacuation of Enerhodar was underway.
Moscow’s troops seized the plant soon after invading Ukraine last year, but Ukrainian employees have continued to run it during the occupation, at times under extreme duress.
