Russian missiles and drones hit Ukraine, civilians killed and infrastructure damaged

Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and other cities in the early hours of Thursday with numerous casualties and damaged infrastructure.

In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a 12-year-old boy and a 35-year-old woman, have died, with 10 residents injured and six of them being treated in hospital. 

Tymur Tkachenko, head of the capital's military administration put the injury toll in the city at 18, including a child, while a mother and child were rescued from a building in a central district where the ground floor was badly damaged.

In the southeastern city of Dnipro, where Russian attacks set residential buildings ablaze, the regional governor said one person was killed, 10 people injured and residential buildings set on fire.

Two children aged five and 14 have been killed and a number of enterprises in the area of Russia's Black Sea port of Tuapse were hit in drone attacks and caught fire, local governor Veniamin Kondratiev said.

In his post on the Telegram messaging app, he also said several residential houses were damaged in the massive drone attacks on the region.

Missile and drone attacks also killed six people and injured 11 more in Ukraine's southern city of Odesa, the head of the local military administration said. Serhiy Lysak, writing on Telegram, said that infrastructure facilities and a residential building were damaged.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city in the northeast, officials said two people had been injured in drone strikes.

An air raid alert remained in effect in both Kyiv and Dnipro more than two hours after it had been imposed in the capital.

Photos posted on line showed fires burning out of control and smoke billowing skyward.