UKRANIAN authorities early today reported explosions in the capital Kyiv and the eastern city of Kharkiv, with the country going on high alert in the face of new Russian missile strikes.

“Explosions are heard in Kharkiv,” mayor Igor Terekhov wrote on social media, while authorities in Kyiv said that air defence systems were operating.

Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said there were explosions in the city’s western Solomiansky district. 

“Fragments of a rocket hit a parking lot,” he wrote on social media, adding that emergency services were on the scene. 

Separately, the Ukrainian air force reported missiles heading in the direction of the northern regions of Sumy and Poltava and the central city of Dnipro.