Dawn raids in the busy Shevchenkivsky district also damaged water pipes and forced the closure of metro stations.

Russian drones and missiles struck the Ukrainian capital, killing at least four people.

Timur Tkachenko, the head of Kiev’s military administration, said Saturday’s dawn attack took place in the Shevchenkievsky district in the city’s center.

“Stay in the shelter,” Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko posted on Telegram on Saturday morning. Hours earlier, he had warned of a “ballistic missile threat” to the capital and said there was a “ballistic missile threat” around the city. Air defense systems have been deployed.

The mayor said windows were shattered in the Shevchenko district, including at the entrance to the Lukianivska metro station, which was closed.

Shevchenkievsky District is a lively area of ​​Kiev with universities, bars and restaurants.

Also on Saturday, Russian troops “attacked the center of Zaporozhye,” injuring two people, according to Zaporozhye Governor Ivan Fedorov. He said the administrative building of an industrial facility was partially damaged.

Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from Kyiv, said explosions were heard around 6am (04:00 GMT) “echoing amid salvos of anti-aircraft fire and air warnings indicating the presence of ballistic missiles and drones” machine threat”.

He said he saw heavy smoke coming from a residential building.

Later that morning, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that it destroyed 24 drones and two ballistic missiles launched in the same attack.

Ukraine’s counterattack

A rare attack in the center of the Ukrainian capital comes as fighting intensifies Ukrainian air strikes Russian energy and military installations in recent months.

Ukrainian forces have recently attacked a number of Russian oil depots, including two major attacks on a facility near a military airport in Russia’s Saratov region, sparking days-long fires.

A Ukrainian drone struck Lyudinovo in Russia’s Kaluga region late Friday, sparking a fire at an industrial site, according to Vladislav Shapsha, the governor of Lyudinovo in Russia’s Kaluga region.

Video posted on unofficial Russian social media sites showed fire trucks speeding toward the blaze at what they said was an oil storage facility in the city. No injuries were reported.