Twelve dead, 33 injured in Russian strikes across Kyiv

At least 12 people have been killed and 33 injured in Russian ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities have said.

Buildings were damaged in the attack early this morning and parts of the Ukrainian capital were left without power.

People were trapped in one residential building and fires broke out in ‌multiple locations, while non-residential facilities, warehouses ⁠and a children's hospital were also hit, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

A Reuters witness reported hearing more than a dozen explosions.

In the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital, another person was killed, an official said separately on Telegram.

Ukraine's emergency service showed video of servicemen battling a blaze in a building and ‌helping people to escape facilities destroyed during the night in Kyiv.

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged attacks almost daily since Russia's full-scale ⁠invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and diplomatic efforts involving the United States ‌and Europe have so far failed to bring a lasting ceasefire.

Poland, a NATO ⁠and European ‌Union member bordering Ukraine, has started defensive air operations to protect its airspace, its military said in a post on X.

Romania's defence ministry said radar systems detected aerial targets near the Ukrainian border overnight, prompting the scrambling of two Spanish fighter jets deployed on NATO missions and a Romanian air force helicopter.

The ministry said a drone entered Romanian airspace near Galati before crashing in an unpopulated area in the country of Tulcea.

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Russia also reported a large Ukrainian drone attack.

Moscow's Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 250 drones had flown toward the Moscow region between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, with most destroyed at a significant distance from the capital itself.

Ukraine had handed proposals to US negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, for a ⁠plan to end the war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said this month, and he has also repeatedly asked ⁠for interceptor missiles to ward off missile attacks.

Russia did not receive specific proposals for possible new meetings with US negotiators, Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry, told the Izvestia newspaper, but said Moscow would be ready to arrange a meeting at short notice.

Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner were last in Moscow last January and have not ‌yet visited Kyiv.