Russia-Ukraine war live: blasts heard in Kyiv city centre; mayor says 10 Iran-made drones shot down

No victims reported in Wendesday morning’s attacks on Kyiv

Isobel Koshiw

There were no victims from the drone debris that damaged two city administrative buildings, the spokesperson for Kyiv’s rescue services, Svitlana Vodolaga, has told Ukraine’s Suspline news.

The Kyiv city administration says that another drone has been shot down, bringing the total number of Shahed drones downed in this morning’s attacks to 11.

In a post on Telegram, the administration said that air alerts were still in place.

Two Kyiv city administrative buildings in the central Shevchenkivskyi district have been damaged by the “debris from a drone,” Kyiv’s city administration has just said in a post on Telegram.

News organisation Nexta has posted this video taken near where the damage occurred. It has not been independently verified by the Guardian.

Kyiv regionional head warns residents to remain in shelters

Isobel Koshiw

The head of Kyiv region, Oleksiy Kuleba, said that Russia was continuing its “energy terror” against Ukraine after Russian drones attacked the capital. He said that most of Wednesday morning’s drones had been shot down by Ukraine’s air defence forces.

Kuleba warned that the air raid alert had not come to an end and advised residents to take safety precautions.

“The danger remains. Stay in shelters,” Kuleba wrote on Telegram.

“Russia continues the energy terror of the country. But we are getting stronger every day.”

Head of neighbouring region warns there may be second wave of drone attacks

Isobel Koshiw

Vitaliy Bunechko, the head of Zhytomyr region, which is next to Kyiv, has warned on Telegram that there may be a second wave of drone attacks, following this morning’s attacks on Kyiv.

Bunechko advised people to remain in bomb shelters.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko has posted on Telegram saying that ten Shahed drones were shot down in the Kyiv region this morning.

Iran supplied the drones to Russia, which has been using them to target infrastructure and civilian targets in Ukraine.

The United States is finalising plans to send its sophisticated Patriot air defence system to Ukraine in a potentially pivotal move

Washington could announce a decision as soon as Thursday on providing the Patriot, two officials told Reuters on Tuesday. The Patriot is considered one of the most advanced US air defence systems and is usually in short supply, with allies around the world vying for it.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned NATO against equipping Kyiv with Patriot missile defences, and it is likely the Kremlin will view the move as an escalation.

With the war in its tenth month, the Patriot system would help Ukraine defend against waves of Russian missile and drone attacks that have pounded the country’s energy infrastructure.

Millions of civilians who are enduring Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two have had to contend with cuts to electricity, heat and water as harsh winter conditions take hold.

Gaining Patriot air defence capability would be “very, very significant” for the Kyiv government, said Alexander Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and onetime leader of Ukraine policy at the White House.

“These are going to be quite capable of dealing with a lot of different challenges the Ukrainians have, especially if the Russians bring in short-range ballistic missiles” from Iran.

The Pentagon declined comment. There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko says that blasts hit the Kyiv’s central Shevchenkivskyi district early on Wednesday. “Emergency services dispatched,” Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app. “Details later.”

Oleksiy Kuleba, the governor of the Kyiv region, said that air defence systems were at work.

The UK’s ambassador said she was “Staying away from windows and hearing explosions outside.”

Emergency services’ maps showed the capital and the region surrounding it had been under air raid siren alerts for about 20 minutes before the blasts.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest news for the next few hours.

Breaking: On Wednesday morning, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that strikes had hit Kyiv’s city centre and emergency services were being dispatched.

Explosions were heard in the early hours of Wednesday in the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv, two Reuters witnesses said. The emergency services’ maps showed the capital and the region surrounding it have been under air raid siren alerts for about 20 minutes before the blasts.

Meanwhile the United States is finalising plans to send its sophisticated Patriot air defence system to Ukraine in a potentially pivotal move while allies pledged just over €‎1bn ($1.05bn) to help Ukrainians survive the freezing winter.

We’ll have more on these stories shortly. In the meantime here are the other key recent developments:

• A suspected officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service was among seven people accused by US federal prosecutors of helping Russia illegally obtain sensitive electronic components from US companies. Prosecutors claimed the seven worked with two Moscow-based companies controlled by Russian intelligence services to acquire electronic components in the US that have civilian uses, but can also be used to help make nuclear and hypersonic weapons and in quantum computing.

• The United States, one of the architects of the G7’s price cap on Russian oil, is so far happy with the way the mechanism is functioning, Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s energy envoy said on Tuesday.

• Generators are as important as armour in helping Ukraine survive Vladimir Putin’s energy terrorism this winter, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. Ukraine needed an additional €800m (£686m) to survive the winter and €1.5bn to restore the long-term damage to the energy grid, its president told an emergency conference in Paris convened to coordinate infrastructure and humanitarian aid over the next four months.

• More than €1bn was raised to support Ukraine this winter at the aid conference in Paris, France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, said. The money, pledged by 46 countries and 24 international organisations, would be split between restoring Ukraine’s depleted energy network, the food sector, water supply, health and transportation.

• Ukrainian forces have reportedly damaged a key bridge outside the southern city of Melitopol, a key objective for Kyiv in the region. Video posted online showed that two supports of the bridge had been damaged during the attack, just days after Ukraine hit a Russian barracks situated in a resort in the city, with Himars rockets causing substantial damage and casualties.

• Ukrainian officials gave the all clear on Tuesday after air raid sirens blared across the country following warnings that Russia may carry out a new wave of missile strikes. Ukrainian media said the alerts may have been triggered by MiG fighter jets that took off from Ryazan, near Russia’s border with Ukraine, and flew towards Belarus.

• Russia and Ukraine pounded each other’s forces in heavy fighting in the eastern region of Donetsk on Tuesday. Moscow is battling to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, two of four territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed in votes rejected by most countries as illegal.

• Ukraine must take into account the new territorial “realities” that include Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin has said. Ukraine’s president said on Monday that Russia could begin to withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine to show they are capable of abandoning their aggression. In response, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there could be “no question” of Moscow beginning to pull out its troops by the end of the year.

• The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, will hold talks to discuss the events of 2022 in late December, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported. Dmitry Peskov told the newspaper that the date and the agenda of the meeting are already known, but an official announcement will come later. The talks will unlikely be face-to-face, the paper said.

• The Belarusian ministry of defence has announced a “sudden combat readiness check” of its troops. The exercises are mostly taking place in the north-west of the country, not close to Ukraine’s border. This is one in a string of announcements by Belarus since mid-October which Kyiv say is designed to stoke fear in Ukrainians.

• Germany will approve another €50m in winter aid for Kyiv following Russia’s missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said. She said Berlin was working to deliver generators, blankets and heating fuel to Ukraine over Christmas.

• The UK Foreign Office announced it was imposing sanctions on 12 Russian commanders for their role in attacks on Ukrainian cities. They include Maj Gen Robert Baranov, identified by Bellingcat as the commander of programming and targeting Russian cruise missiles, as well as four Iranians, including the co-owner and managing director of MADO, an Iranian drone engine manufacturer.

• The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Tuesday that there was an agreement on removing heavy weapons from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants. Talks were under way, he said, adding: “We managed to protect Chornobyl and our goal is to protect Zaporizhzhia. The coming weeks will be crucial.”