At least six people were killed in Kyiv’s busy Shevchenkivskyi district where an entire section of a residential high-rise building was destroyed, Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Four children were among 25 people wounded in the attack, he added.

“The Russians’ style is unchanged – to hit where there may be people,” Tkachenko said.

“Residential buildings, exits from shelters - this is the Russian style.”

Moscow has stepped up drone and missile strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in recent weeks as talks to end the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, yielded few results.

Both sides deny targeting civilians, but thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict – the vast majority of them Ukrainian. Russia has not commented on the latest attacks.

Interior minister Ihor Klymenko said people could still be under the rubble after the overnight attacks caused damage in six of the city’s 10 districts.

“To be honest, it wasn’t like I got scared. It was more like my life was frozen,” said a 75-year-old local resident who only gave her first name, Liudmyla.

“You’re frozen, looking at all of it and thinking about how you will live.”

Ukraine’s air force said it downed 339 of 352 drones and 15 of 16 missiles launched by Russia in the attack on four Ukrainian regions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he would discuss the country’s defence and additional pressure on Russia to end such strikes during his visit to Britain.

Photos posted by Ukraine’s State Emergency Service showed rescuers leading people to safety from buildings and structures on fire in the dark.

An entrance to the metro station in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district was also damaged, along with an adjacent bus stop, officials said.

Kyiv’s deep metro stations have been used throughout the war as some of the city’s safest bomb shelters.

Kyiv Polytechnic Institute said the attack damaged its sports complex, several academic buildings and four dormitories.

In the broader Kyiv region that surrounds the Ukrainian capital, a 68-year-old woman was killed and at least eight people were injured, officials said.

Russia launched one of its deadliest attacks on Kyiv last week, when hundreds of drones killed 28 people and injured more than 150.