KYIV: Ukraine said Wednesday it had shot down more than a dozen Iranian-made drones launched at the capital by Russian forces in their latest assault on Kyiv.
The attack came as the Kremlin promised no let-up to fighting over Christmas and as Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky urged European leaders to back a court to try Russian officials.
"The terrorists started this morning with 13 Shaheds," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, referring to the Iran-made weapons.
"All 13 were shot down" he added, urging residents to heed air raid sirens.
The national energy provider Ukrenergo said no electricity facilities had been damaged in the attack, crediting Ukrainian air defences for their "brilliant" work.
Ukraine has been subjected to nearly 10 months of air raid sirens and frequent aerial attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine in February and tried to capture the capital.
But since a series of key battlefield setbacks this summer and autumn, Russia switched began systematically targeting critical infrastructure in Ukraine.
As temperatures drop, the missile and drone attacks disrupted electricity, water and heat to millions in Ukraine.
'Nearly 7 million children' at risk
The strikes targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure have piled pressure on the country's power grid, whose operators have for weeks been forced to implement rolling blackouts.
They left "nearly seven million children without sustained access to electricity, heating and water, putting them at increased risk", UNICEF, the UN children's agency said Wednesday.
Russian drone attacks target power network in Ukraine's Odesa: officials
Explosions rang out over central Kyiv and AFP journalists later saw law enforcement and emergency service workers inspecting metal fragments at a snow-covered impact site.
City officials said debris from the downed drones had damaged residential homes and an local administrative building. No one was reported injured or killed.
The latest round of attacks came a day after dozens of countries and international organisations meeting up in Paris responded to a plea from Zelensky to help the country withstand Russia's onslaught on its energy grid with 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion).
In a video message from Kyiv, Zelensky said Ukraine needed assistance for its battered energy sector and spare parts for repairs, high-capacity generators, extra gas and increased electricity imports.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on Ukraine's allies to provide his country with more weapons to help it "fight through the winter" and sustain Kyiv's military advances.
US citizen freed
Ukraine separately said Wednesday it had secured the release of US citizen Suedi Murekezi as well as 64 Ukrainian members of the military in its latest prisoner swap with Russian forces.
Russia's state-run TASS news agency earlier reported that Murekezi had been arrested in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine in June and charged with attending anti-Russian protests.
After nearly 10 months of fighting, Russia has yet to fulfil any of its stated key goals in what it refers to as its "special military operation" in Ukraine, including seizing the capital or the eastern Donbas region.
The Moscow-installed leader of Ukraine's Donetsk region on Wednesday however called for Russia to widen its goals and annex two more areas of Ukraine, the Black Sea region of Odessa and Chernigiv in the north.
The Kremlin said a ceasefire was not on Moscow's agenda, and that it had not received any proposals from Kyiv to pause fighting in Ukraine during the upcoming holiday period.
"No, no proposals have been received from anyone and no topic of this kind is on the agenda," the Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, Zelensky accepted the European Union Sakharov Prize for human rights on behalf of the people of Ukraine.
As he accepted the EU's top rights award, he urged Europe to help set up a tribunal swiftly to try Russia's leadership for the "crime of aggression".
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