Russia hits Ukraine with large number of drone strikes
Air raid sirens, the sound of kamikaze drones and booming detonations reverberated from early evening until dawn as Russia launched what Ukraine's Air Force said was a total of 539 drones and 11 missiles.
Residents huddled with families in underground metro stations for shelter during the attack, which happened only hours after US President Donald Trump spoke with Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Following the call, the Kremlin said that the Russian leader told Mr Trump that Moscow will not "give up" on its aims in Ukraine while pledging it will also keep up a negotiating process on the conflict.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is due to speak to Mr Trump later about the war and a US pause in some deliveries of air defence missiles, called the attack "deliberately massive and cynical".
"Notably, the first air raid alerts in our cities and regions yesterday began to blare almost simultaneously with media reports discussing a phone call between President Trump and Putin," Mr Zelensky said in a post on X.
"Yet again, Russia is showing it has no intention of ending the war and terror," he added, calling for increased pressure on Russia and more air defence equipment.
Kyiv officials said the attack damaged about 40 apartment blocks, passenger railway infrastructure, five schools and kindergartens, cafes and many cars in six of Kyiv's ten districts.
Poland said the consular section of its embassy was damaged in central Kyiv, adding that staff were unharmed.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that 14 of the injured were hospitalised.
Ukraine's state-owned railway Ukrzaliznytsia, the country's largest carrier, said on Telegram that the attack on Kyiv forced them to divert a number of passenger trains, causing delays.
Damage was recorded on both sides of the wide Dnipro River bisecting the city and falling drone debris set a medical facility on fire in the leafy Holosiivskyi district, Mr Klitschko said.
Russian air strikes on Kyiv have intensified in recent weeks and included some of the deadliest assaults of the war on the city of three million people.
Call for sanctions
Mr Trump said that the call with Mr Putin resulted in no progress at all on efforts to end the war, while the Kremlin reiterated that Moscow would keep pushing to solve the conflict's "root causes".
A decision by Washington earlier this week to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine prompted warnings by Kyiv that the move would weaken its ability to defend against intensifying airstrikes and battlefield advances.
Mr Zelensky has called for increased pressure on Moscow to change its "dumb, destructive behaviour".
"For every such strike against people and human life, they must feel appropriate sanctions and other blows to their economy, their revenues, and their infrastructure," he said.
Ukraine's Air Force said that it destroyed 478 of the air weapons Russia launched overnight.
However, air strikes were recorded in eight locations across the country with nine missiles and 63 drones, it added.
Social media videos showed people running to seek shelter, firefighters fighting blazes in the dark and ruined buildings with windows and facades blown out.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian. Many more soldiers are believed to have died on the frontlines, although neither side releases military casualty figures.
Late yesterday, Russian shelling killed five people in and near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a key target under Russian attack for months, Ukraine said.
Meanwhile, Russia has announced a fresh swap of prisoners of war with Ukraine, saying it was part of agreements reached between Moscow and Kyiv during talks in Istanbul last month.
Russia's defence ministry said Kyiv handed over a "group of Russian servicemen" and that Moscow "handed a group of Ukrainian soldiers in return".
It did not say how many soldiers were exchanged.
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