Russia aims to hobble Ukraine's defences ahead of expected assault in the east

Russian forces renewed missile strikes on Kyiv and intensified shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, in an apparent strategy to hobble Ukraine's defences in preparation for what is expected to be a full-scale Russian assault in the east.

These attacks and others scattered across the country were an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western supporters that the whole country remains under threat.

With the port city of Mariupol under siege, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia "is deliberately trying to destroy everyone who is there." He said Ukraine needs more heavy weapons from the West immediately to have any chance of saving the city.

Each day brings new discoveries of civilian victims of an invasion that has shattered European security. In the towns and villages just outside Kyiv, authorities have reported finding the bodies of more than 900 civilians, most shot dead, since Russian troops retreated two weeks ago.

After the humiliating loss of the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet, Russia's military command vowed to step up missile strikes on the capital. The Russians said they hit an armoured vehicle plant on Saturday, a day after targeting a missile plant.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko advised residents who fled the city earlier in the war not to return.

"We're not ruling out further strikes on the capital," he said. "If you have the opportunity to stay a little bit longer in the cities where it's safer, do it."

The mayor said Saturday's strike killed one person and wounded several. It was not immediately clear from the ground what was hit in the strike on Kyiv's Darnytskyi district. The sprawling area on the southeastern edge of the capital contains a mixture of Soviet-style apartment blocks, newer shopping centres and big-box retail outlets, industrial areas and railyards.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said an armoured vehicle plant was targeted. He didn't specify where the factory was located, but there is one in the Darnytskyi district.

He said the plant was among multiple Ukrainian military sites hit with "air-launched high-precision long-range weapons."

The Russian missiles hit the city just as residents were emerging for walks, foreign embassies planned to reopen and other tentative signs of the city's prewar life started resurfacing, following the failure of Russian troops to capture Kyiv and their withdrawal.

Kyiv was one of many targets Saturday. The Ukrainian president's office reported missile strikes and shelling over the past 24 hours in eight regions across the country.

The governor of the Lviv region in western Ukraine, which has been only sporadically touched by the war's violence, reported airstrikes on the region by Russian Su-35 aircraft that took off from neighbouring Belarus.

In Kharkiv in the northeast, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said three people were killed and 34 wounded on Saturday. One explosion believed to have been caused by a missile sent rescue workers scrambling near an outdoor market. They said one person was killed and at least 18 wounded.