Blasts heard in Kyiv during air raid alert — AFP

KYIV, Ukraine — Explosions rang out in Kyiv shortly after midnight local time on Wednesday, AFP reporters said, after the Ukrainian air force reported the approach of several ballistic missiles.

Ukraine has in recent months urged its allies for more supplies of US-made Patriot missile interceptors to protect its airspace against Russian ballistic attacks.

Russian attacks on Kyiv and its suburbs on Saturday killed 10 people and wounded more than 30 while Ukrainian drones sank a huge Russian container ship in the Black Sea.

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Both sides have increased their long-range attacks on the other in recent weeks, with Russia more than doubling its use of missiles in July, according to AFP analysis.

UN human rights monitors have voiced concern about rising numbers of civilian casualties, which have reached their highest levels since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said a lack of ballistic missile interceptors “only encourages Russia to launch such attacks that take human lives”.

He met his US counterpart Donald Trump last Tuesday, partly to lobby Washington for licences to produce Patriots domestically.

Russia said Saturday’s attack struck “military-industrial complex industries and logistics centres”. One of the buildings damaged in Kyiv was Lithuania’s embassy. Another was a five-storey residential building.