- Tiffany Wertheimer in London and Hugo Bashiga in Kyiv
- BBC News
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Some of the missiles hit critical power infrastructure, causing power outages across the city
Explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, as Russia launched a nighttime assault on the city.
Kyiv officials said no one was killed and most of the rockets were shot down, but some hit “vital infrastructure”, causing power outages across the region.
Pictures online show firefighters at a huge fire at a power plant.
This comes at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting Belarus to meet his counterpart Alexander Lukashenko.
This latest barrage of missile attacks from Russia is the third in five days, but night raids on Kyiv are not usual.
Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv military department, said 23 Iranian missiles were launched, 18 of which were shot down.
The authorities reported that only two people were injured, which is a very low figure given that many people were asleep at the time of the strikes on civilian areas.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram that “vital infrastructure facilities have been damaged” and engineers are working to restore power.
It is winter now in Ukraine, and temperatures in Kyiv regularly drop below freezing.
On Friday, Russia launched a barrage of missiles in one of the largest air strikes on the capital since the war began, and Kyiv accused Moscow of using winter as a weapon, by attacking civilian infrastructure such as power grids.
Over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia might be planning another major ground offensive early next year, from Belarus.
Meanwhile, many experts said they have not yet seen any evidence of preparations for a new offensive, and wonder if Moscow will be able to do so over the winter.
Belarus shares borders with both Russia and Ukraine, and Alexander Lukashenko is a close ally of President Putin.
On Monday, the Russian president was received by his Belarusian counterpart at Minsk National Airport.
While Belarus was not directly involved in the war, it did allow Russian forces to use its territory to launch the war in February. Minsk is under increasing pressure from Moscow to increase its support for so-called “special military action”.
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But Putin’s spokesman called the notion that Russia was pressuring Belarus to join the war “stupid and baseless slander”.
Putin had arrived in Minsk to meet Lukashenko shortly after the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its forces stationed in Belarus would conduct joint military exercises, which would increase Kyiv’s fears of a new incursion.
In his Sunday night address, Zelensky said protecting Ukraine’s borders was a consistent priority, and he was preparing defenses for all scenarios.