Large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine leaves four dead and dozens injured

Russia has launched a large-scale wave of strikes against Ukraine, firing hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles.

Four people were killed and more than 50 others injured in Kyiv and its surrounding areas, with explosions heard across the region overnight into Sunday, and reports of damage to residential buildings and schools.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Oreshnik hypersonic missile was used in a strike on Bila Tserkva, a city within the Kyiv region.

The strikes follow Russian President Vladimir Putin's vow to retaliate after accusing Ukraine of carrying out a deadly attack on a student dormitory in the town of Starobilsk on Friday in which 18 people were killed.

The general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said it did carry out an attack near Starobilsk in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine overnight on Friday, but maintained that it struck an elite Russian military unit.

Russia's overnight strikes on Sunday came after warnings from Zelensky that there were signs Russia was planning an attack.

He had also said that Ukraine's intelligence services had received information that Russia could use the Oreshnik missile, which reportedly travels at more than 10 times the speed of sound and is impossible to intercept.

Ukraine's air force said that from 18:00 local time on Saturday, it detected 90 missiles and 600 drones.

The attack hit more than 50 locations across Kyiv, according to Ukraine's national police. Residential buildings, shopping centres, and emergency service and police buildings were reportedly struck.

Zelensky said a water-supply facility was also attacked.

"The capital has been subjected to a massive ballistic attack. Further launches are possible," Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv's military administration wrote on Telegram shortly after midnight.

Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko said two people had been killed in the city itself, with 30 people, including two children in hospital.

A person was killed after a nine-storey residential building in the central Shevchenko district was hit and a fire broke out on the top floors.

In the same district, a strike near an air raid shelter at a school blocked its entrance with debris, trapping several people inside.

Emergency services rushed to multiple scenes of damage across the city, putting out blazes, clearing debris and treating the injured.

In the wider Kyiv region surrounding the capital, a further two people were also killed, according to regional head Mykola Kalashnyk.

He described the attack as "deliberate terror against peaceful people", adding that "emergency services are working in all places".

Outside Kyiv, the regions of Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Kropyvnytskyi, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy, and Zhytomyr have also come under attack, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

At least 83 people have been injured since the start of the day, Zelensky said.