Russia hammered the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and other cities with missiles and drones early yesterday, officials said, targeting warehouses, ports, and energy and industrial facilities in an hours-long assault that dragged into the morning.

Commuters in Kyiv streamed to work under the booming sound of air defences firing at jet-powered drones attacking the city in several waves, after an overnight barrage that included an unspecified number of ballistic missiles and 258 drones.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week Ukraine had recently received a small batch of the US-made Patriot interceptors capable of downing the fast-moving ballistic missiles.

Meanwhile, a car explosion killed one person in Saint Petersburg yesterday, Russian investigators said, with Russian media reporting it was an army officer in what appeared to be the latest assassination during the Ukraine war.