Star Metro - Russian barrage on Ukraine kills 9, wounds dozens

Russia has stepped up ballistic missile strikes on Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, with Ukraine responding with strikes deep inside Russian territory.

The overnight attacks spanned Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, regional authorities said.

Russia's defence ministry said its forces "delivered a group strike with high-precision ground-based weapons, hitting military-industrial enterprises and transport-logistics centres in the cities of Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia".

In Zaporizhzhia, Ivan Fedorov, head of the regional military administration, said Russian forces launched a "massive" attack using missiles and guided aerial bombs.

"Six people were killed and 19 others wounded," Fedorov wrote on Telegram, updating an earlier toll of five dead.

In the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian drone and artillery strikes on five districts killed three people and wounded five others, regional military administration head Oleksandr Ganzha said on Telegram.

In Kyiv, AFP journalists heard a series of explosions shortly after midnight after authorities issued a missile alert.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on social media that the capital was "under ballistic missile attack".

Ukraine's emergency service said a warehouse caught fire and one person was wounded.

President Volodymyr Zelensky had said earlier that Russia was preparing to deploy more North Korean troops and had received new ballistic missiles from Pyongyang.

Only certain air defence systems, including US Patriots, are capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.

A shortage of PAC-3 interceptors has worsened since the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran in February.

At the same time, Ukraine has been increasing its strikes against Russian cities far from the border.

D.Fraser--SMC