Strikes on the capital have caused few casualties but residents face a new ‘psychological terror’

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When the air raid alarms go off at around 3am, the first things exhausted Kyvians do is reach for their mobile phones, check the news, message family and friends – and start listening to the explosions that almost certainly follow.

“You wake up, go to a safe space, maybe a shelter, holding your phone. You cannot work, you cannot read; you sit and look around and wait. In the worst case, you hear a distinctive noise, maybe like a motorcycle passing by,” said Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian MP and leader of the liberal Holos party.

Girl and her mother reportedly among the dead from falling debris after short-range missiles intercepted

Three people including a child were killed and at least 11 people were injured in an early morning missile attack on Kyiv that hit apartment buildings, two schools and a children’s clinic, according to city authorities.

The attack, on what is International Children’s Day in many post-Soviet countries, reportedly involved 10 Iskander short-range missiles, and there was only a few minutes’ warning before they hit. Most of the damage appeared to be from falling debris after the incoming missiles were intercepted by the capital’s air defences.

Residents run for shelter during attack that appears to have been part of effort to exhaust air defences

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Russian forces have launched an intense and unusual daytime missile barrage at Kyiv, forcing residents to flee to bomb shelters, in what appears to be an effort to exhaust Ukraine’s air defences.

The Ukrainian military said it had intercepted all 11 of the ballistic and cruise missiles fired at the city in the attack that began at 11am. One person was reported to have been injured. Residents who had become accustomed to a string of night-time attacks ran to Kyiv’s metro stations and other shelters after a succession of loud bangs as incoming missiles were intercepted and bursts of smoke from air defences dotted the clear morning sky.

Six out of six Kinzhal missiles launched at Kyiv during ‘intense’ night-time attack shot down, says air command

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Ukraine has said it has neutralised the Kremlin’s most potent hypersonic weapon, shooting down six out of six Kinzhal missiles launched at Kyiv during a sweeping and “exceptionally intense” night-time attack.

Yurii Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s air command, said Moscow had also bombarded the capital with nine Kalibr missiles and three ballistic rockets, as well as six attack drones and three reconnaissance drones. All were shot down, he said, thwarting what he called “air terrorism”.

Moscow unveils plans to deploy musicians to frontline in bid to boost morale among Russian troops

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Heating has been fully restored to Kyiv, the city’s mayor has said, after one of the most intense Russian bombardments of the capital last week robbed it of key civilian energy supplies and forced the national government to implement rolling blackouts.

Vitali Klitschko said on Sunday morning the capital was successfully “restoring all services after the latest shelling” and that “in particular, the capital’s heating supply system is fully restored. All sources of heat supply work normally.”

Officials say 13 Iranian-made drones shot down as air raid sirens sound in capital and surrounding area

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The Ukrainian military shot down 13 Iranian-made drones over Kyiv and the surrounding region early on Wednesday as a series of explosions hit the capital in what authorities described as a continuation of Russia’s “energy terror” against the country.

Kyiv’s city administration said two of its administrative buildings had been damaged by the falling debris of a drone. There were no victims, the spokesperson for Kyiv’s rescue services, Svitlana Vodolaga, told Ukraine’s Suspline news.

As winter looms, Moscow escalates missile attacks on vital utilities such as hydro plants, substations and dams

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A wave of Russian missiles slammed into hydroelectric plants and other critical energy and water infrastructure across Ukraine on Monday, with explosions reported near the capital, Kyiv, and in at least 10 other regions.

Hydro plants, substations and heat generation facilities were all hit, Ukraine said, while the ministry of defence in Moscow said it had targeted “energy systems” in a devastating morning raid carried out using long-range cruise missiles.

Russian attacks and the prospect of power cuts have made people nervous and politicians angry

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For some it was a rude awakening. Those arriving into Kyiv’s busy central station on Monday morning suddenly found themselves in the middle of an unexpected and unwanted drone war; hammered by the sounds of panicked last-ditch gunfire from the ground that failed to stop five terrifying explosions in two hours.

It was the second Monday in a row the centre of Kyiv had been targeted, and the first time the capital had been hit by Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones. The Russians had been aiming for a power plant a block from the station, but instead hit buildings and people elsewhere. Five died, including a pregnant woman, when a civilian apartment building was hit.

Gazprombank’s Igor Volobuyev and diplomat Boris Bondarev are among the Russian elite to oppose Putin’s invasion of Ukraine

Igor Volobuyev spent two decades working in the heart of the Russian business establishment, first for Gazprom and then for its affiliate Gazprombank, where until February this year he was vice-president.

Then Vladimir Putin launched his war on Ukraine in late February, and Volobuyev decided he could no longer stand living in Russia. He packed a small rucksack of possessions and a stack of cash, and flew out of the country on 2 March, pretending he was going on holiday.

Morgue staff are struggling to keep up with the number of casualties, with bodies piled in refrigerated trucks

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The first body arrived in late February, a few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. The next day, two more. By the beginning of March, the morgue, on the outskirts of Kyiv, had no more space for the dead who, every day, arrived by the dozen from the cities of Bucha and Borodyanka – at the time occupied by the Russian forces.

When Moscow’s withdrawal from the areas north of the capital early in April unveiled the brutality of mass graves, with hundreds of civilian corpses buried in residential districts, every morgue in the Kyiv region was already at breaking point.