Russian strikes kill three across Ukraine, officials say

A Ukrainian emergency service officer carries out a search and rescue operation among the rubble of a destroyed hotel after a strike in the town of Kramatorsk, Donetsk region on August 25, 2024. [Photo, AFP]

Russian strikes across Ukraine on Monday killed at least three people, wounded several and damaged energy infrastructure.

AFP journalists in the capital heard explosions ring out early on Monday -- likely from air defence systems -- while residents rushed to take shelter in metro stations.

An AFP photographer also saw black smoke rising over Kyiv.

Authorities in at least six regions of the country said blasts had been heard in their territories.

The governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Sergiy Lysak, said Russian forces had attacked "en masse."

"There is one dead, a 69-year-old man," the governor wrote on social media.

In the Zaporizhzhia region, the attack killed one civilian, the governor Ivan Fedorov said, without elaborating.

In the western city of Lutsk, Russian bombardment damaged an apartment building and an infrastructure facility, the mayor, Igor Polishchuk, said.

He added that one person had been killed.

The attack also targeted energy facilities in the Lviv region in the west of the country, the governor said.

In the wider region of Kyiv, authorities said Russia used drones and missiles to attack energy infrastructure and one person was wounded.

"As a result, there are partial power outages in (the city of) Lviv and the region," governor Maksym Kozytskyi said on social media.

Earlier, an attack on an industrial facility in the eastern region of Poltava wounded five people, governor Filip Pronin said.

Since invading in February 2022, Russia has launched dozens of large-scale drone and missile attacks on Ukraine.

Most recently, those strikes have targeted energy facilities causing millions of dollars worth of damage and disrupting lives of millions of Ukrainians.