Russia on Monday stepped up attacks across Ukraine, cutting electricity in towns and killing eight people, including in 'kamikaze' drone strikes in the capital Kyiv, as a Russian warplane crashed near the Ukraine border.
The Russian military plane crashed into a residential area of Yeysk, a town in southwestern Russia, news agencies reported, citing the defence ministry.
At least three deaths were reported.
A fire that engulfed a nine-storey residential building has been contained and is almost extinguished, regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram.
"There could be an explosion. Everything is burning inside. There is smoke," Oksana, a local resident who declined to give her last name, told AFP.
Meanwhile Moscow is thought to be trying to counter battlefield losses by waging a punitive policy of damaging energy facilities before winter in a move that Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes will weaken Ukrainian resistance in the eight-month war.
Ukraine said four were killed in Kyiv, including a married couple expecting a baby, and another four in the northeast region of Sumy, with its foreign minister demanding EU sanctions on Iran, accusing Tehran of providing Russia with drones.
"I saw a bright orange splash... The house trembled," said resident Tamara Beroshvili.
"We were scared," agreed Yevgeniya Sakharuk. "It was very close to our apartment, and we heard a lot of anti-aircraft (fire) and it sounded like automatic fire."
Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said Russia launched five strikes in Kyiv and against energy facilities in Sumy and the central Dnipropetrovsk regions, knocking out electricity to hundreds of towns and villages.
"A husband and wife who were expecting a child. The woman was six months pregnant," said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko on social media, identifying two of the dead.
Ukraine officials said that the capital Kyiv had been struck four times in an early morning Russian attack with Iranian drones that damaged a residential building and targeted the central train station. Source: Getty / SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images
An AFP journalist saw drones swooping low over central Kyiv as police tried to shoot them down with automatic weapons and smoke rose from explosions across the city.
'Expelled' from G20
The attack comes exactly a week after Russia missiles rained down on Kyiv and other cities on 10 October in the biggest wave of strikes in months.
Those attacks killed at least 19 people, wounded 105 others and sparked an international outcry.
"They seem to be hitting us every Monday now," said taxi driver Sergiy Prikhodko, who was waiting for a fare near the central train station in Kyiv.
"It's a new way of starting the week," he told AFP.
Air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv shortly before the first explosion at around 6:35 am (0335 GMT), followed by sirens across most of the country.
"Kamikaze drones and missiles are attacking all of Ukraine. The enemy can attack our cities, but it won't be able to break us," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
A Ukrainian soldier stands guard in front of the building hit by the Russian forces in Kyiv, Ukraine. Source: Getty / Anadolu Agency
In a statement on social media, he called for Russia to be "expelled from all platforms".
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on the EU to sanction Iran, accusing Tehran of supplying drones to Russia.
Iran denies exporting any weapons to either side.
But the United States warned it would take action against companies and nations working with Iran's drone programme following the strikes in Kyiv.
NATO drills
In Moscow, the city's mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that Russian army draft offices would close from Monday, saying the Kremlin's mobilisation quotas to recruit reservists to fight in Ukraine had been completed in the capital.
"The tasks of the partial mobilisation" - announced just over a month ago - in the city had been "completed in full", Sobyanin said on his website.
Ukraine announced on Monday it had swapped more than 100 prisoners with Russia in what it said was the first all-female exchange with Moscow since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
NATO launched regular nuclear deterrence drills in western Europe, which were planned before Russia invaded Ukraine, rejecting calls to scrap the exercises after Putin ratcheted up veiled threats to launch a nuclear attack.
The exercises will involve US B-52 long-range bombers, and up to 60 aircraft in total will take part in training flights over Belgium, the United Kingdom and the North Sea.
Meanwhile, Moscow ally Belarus said up to 9,000 Russian soldiers and around 170 tanks would be deployed in the country to build up a new joint force, which it said will be uniquely defensive and aims to secure its borders.
In the south, Ukrainian troops have been pushing closer and closer to the large city of Kherson, just north of Crimea.
Kherson is one of four regions in Ukraine that Moscow recently claimed to have annexed.
'We need more air defences'
The head of the national railways, Alexander Kamyshin, confirmed earlier attacks "near" the capital's central rail hub.
"We need more air defence systems and as soon as possible. More weapons to defend the sky and destroy the enemy," Mr Zelenskyy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on social media.
"The Russians think it will help them but it shows their desperation," he also wrote.
The Ukrainian military said Russian drones and missiles were targeting towns and cities across the country. It estimated that Russian forces had fired two missiles and 26 air strikes, and carried out more than 80 rocket attacks.
"In the past 13 hours, the Ukrainian military shot down 37 Iranian Shahed-136 drones and three cruise missiles launched by Russian terrorists," the defence ministry said in a separate statement.
In Kyiv, Mr Klitschko said earlier the drone attacks in Shevchenkivsky district caused a fire and damaged several buildings. He warned residents to take shelter.
"Fire departments are working. Several residential buildings were damaged. Medics are on the spot," he said on Telegram.
"We are clarifying the information about the casualties."
Mr Klitschko also posted a picture of what he said was the charred wreckage of one of the kamikaze drones — loitering munitions that can hover while waiting for a target to attack.
'Iranian drones'
Mr Zelenskyy last week said Iranian drones were used in Russian attacks on energy infrastructure in several cities, although Tehran denies supplying Russia with weapons for the war.
On 10 October, Russian missiles rained down on Kyiv and other cities in the biggest wave of strikes in months.
The attacks killed at least 19 people, wounded 105 others and sparked an international outcry.
Ukraine officials said that the capital Kyiv had been struck four times in an early morning Russian attack with Iranian drones that damaged a residential building and targeted the central train station. Source: Getty / SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the strikes were in retaliation for an explosion that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula.
Mr Putin last week expressed satisfaction and said there was no need for further massive strikes on Ukraine "for now".
The Russian president also claimed Moscow was "doing everything right" in its invasion of Ukraine, despite a string of embarrassing defeats.
In southern Ukraine, Kyiv's troops have been pushing closer and closer to Kherson, the main city in the region of the same name, just north of Crimea.
Kherson is one of four regions in Ukraine that Moscow recently claimed to have annexed, and the city of Kherson was the first major city to fall after the Kremlin launched its invasion in February.
US warns of sanctions over Iran drone ties
The US warned on Monday it would take action against companies and nations working with Iran's drone program after Russia used the imports for deadly kamikaze strikes in Kyiv.
"Anyone doing business with Iran that could have any link to UAVs or ballistic missile developments or the flow of arms from Iran to Russia should be very careful and do their due diligence - the US will not hesitate to use sanctions or take actions against perpetrators," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
"Russia deepening an alliance with Iran is something the whole world -- especially those in the region and across the world, frankly - should be seeing as a profound threat," he said.
Mr Patel said that the United States also believed that Iran's shipment of the drones - formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles - violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which blessed a now moribund 2015 nuclear deal.
Smoke rises after a drone fired on buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, 17 October, 2022. Source: AP / Efrem Lukatsky
The resolution's ban on Iranian exports of conventional weapons expired in October 2020 despite efforts at the United Nations by the administration of Donald Trump, who left the nuclear deal.
But the resolution maintains restrictions through October 2023 on exports related to ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear weapons.
Citing previously released US intelligence, Mr Patel said that some of Iran's drones being sold to Russia have malfunctioned.
The transfer shows the "enormous pressure" on Russia, which according to US figures has lost 6,000 pieces of equipment since invading Ukraine, he said.
Moscow is "being forced frankly to resort to unreliable countries like Iran for supplies and equipment," he said.
US officials have previously said that Russia, historically a major arms exporter, is also turning to North Korea but that China has rebuffed calls for assistance.
Washington last week announced fresh military assistance for Kyiv "in the wake of Russia's brutal missile attacks on civilians across Ukraine".
The new $US725-million ($A1.16-million) package included more ammunition for the Himars rocket systems that have been used by Ukraine to wreak havoc on Russian targets.
It brings the total US military assistance to Ukraine to $US17.6 billion ($A28.2 billion) since the Russian invasion began on 24 February.
