Ukraine has said that "another massive attack" on the capital Kiev killed at least seven people, a day after the country's top military commander vowed to intensify strikes on Russia.
Diplomatic efforts to end the three-year war have stalled, with the last direct meeting between the two sides almost three weeks ago and no follow-up talks scheduled.
“Twenty-two people were injured in the enemy's night attack on the capital. Currently, 12 of them are in city hospitals. The rest were treated by doctors on the spot. At this time, six people have been confirmed dead,” Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.
He said that the strike resulted in extensive damage to a five-story building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district, adding that search and rescue work at the scene is ongoing.
Klitschko further said that the blast wave also damaged apartments in a 25-story residential building nearby.
Noting that a person was also killed in the city of Bila Tserkva in the surrounding Kiev region after a drone struck a hospital, Zelenskyy claimed that preliminary reports indicate ballistic weapons from North Korea were also used in the attack on the capital.
The latest strikes came after Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky vowed to intensify strikes on Russia.
"We will not just sit in defence because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories," he told reporters.
Syrsky said Ukraine would continue its strikes on Russian military targets, which he said had proved "effective".
"Of course we will continue. We will increase the scale and depth," he said.
'Fair response'
Ukraine has launched retaliatory strikes on Russia throughout the war, targeting energy and military infrastructure sometimes hundreds of kilometres from the front line.
Kiev says the strikes are a fair response to deadly Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians.
At least four people were killed in an overnight Russian strike on an apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, while a strike on a Ukrainian army training ground later in the day killed three others, officials said.
On the other hand, Russia's air defence units destroyed 16 Ukrainian drones between 10 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) on Sunday and 6 a.m. on Monday, the Russian defence ministry said.
Thirteen of the drones were downed over the Rostov region, while the rest of the weapons were destroyed over the Astrakhan and Volgograd regions, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app on Monday.
