Sawt Falasteen - Deadly drone strikes hit Kyiv as Russian warplane crashes

The Russian military plane crashed into a residential area of Yeysk, a town in southwestern Russia, news agencies reported, citing the defence ministry.

At least three deaths were reported.

A fire that engulfed a nine-storey residential building has been contained and is almost extinguished, regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram.

"There could be an explosion. Everything is burning inside. There is smoke," Oksana, a local resident who declined to give her last name, told AFP.

Meanwhile Moscow is thought to be trying to counter battlefield losses by waging a punitive policy of damaging energy facilities before winter in a move that President Vladimir Putin hopes will weaken Ukrainian resistance in the eight-month war.

Ukraine said four were killed in Kyiv, including a married couple expecting a baby, and another four in the northeast region of Sumy, with its foreign minister demanding EU sanctions on Iran, accusing Tehran of providing Russia with drones.

"I saw a bright orange splash... The house trembled," said resident Tamara Beroshvili.

"We were scared," agreed Yevgeniya Sakharuk. "It was very close to our apartment, and we heard a lot of anti-aircraft (fire) and it sounded like automatic fire."

Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said Russia launched five strikes in Kyiv and against energy facilities in Sumy and the central Dnipropetrovsk regions, knocking out electricity to hundreds of towns and villages.

"A husband and wife who were expecting a child. The woman was six months pregnant," said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko on social media, identifying two of the dead.

Emergency services later said power was restored in Sumy.

"Hundreds of settlements were cut off as a result of the attack," Shmygal had said earlier, referring to all regions.

An AFP journalist saw drones swooping low over central Kyiv as police tried to shoot them down with automatic weapons and smoke rose from explosions across the city.

- 'Expelled' from G20 -

The attack comes exactly a week after Russia missiles rained down on Kyiv and other cities on October 10 in the biggest wave of strikes in months.

Those attacks killed at least 19 people, wounded 105 others and sparked an international outcry.

"They seem to be hitting us every Monday now," said taxi driver Sergiy Prikhodko, who was waiting for a fare near the central train station in Kyiv.

"It's a new way of starting the week," he told AFP.

Air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv shortly before the first explosion at around 6:35 am (0335 GMT), followed by sirens across most of the country.

"Kamikaze drones and missiles are attacking all of Ukraine. The enemy can attack our cities, but it won't be able to break us," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

"Those who give orders to attack critical infrastructure, to freeze civilians and organize total mobilisation to cover the frontline with corpses, cannot sit at the same table with leaders of (the) G20," senior presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said.

In a statement on social media, he called for Russia to be "expelled from all platforms".

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on the EU to sanction Iran, accusing Tehran of supplying drones to Russia.

Iran denies exporting any weapons to either side.

But the United States warned it would take action against companies and nations working with Iran's drone programme following the strikes in Kyiv.

- NATO drills -

In Moscow, the city's mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that Russian army draft offices would close from Monday, saying the Kremlin's mobilisation quotas to recruit reservists to fight in Ukraine had been completed in the capital.

"The tasks of the partial mobilisation" -- announced just over a month ago -- in the city had been "completed in full", Sobyanin said on his website.

Ukraine announced on Monday it had swapped more than 100 prisoners with Russia in what it said was the first all-female exchange with Moscow since the Russian invasion began on February 24.

NATO launched regular nuclear deterrence drills in western Europe, which were planned before Russia invaded Ukraine, rejecting calls to scrap the exercises after Putin ratcheted up veiled threats to launch a nuclear attack.

The exercises will involve US B-52 long-range bombers, and up to 60 aircraft in total will take part in training flights over Belgium, the United Kingdom and the North Sea.

Meanwhile, Moscow ally Belarus said up to 9,000 Russian soldiers and around 170 tanks would be deployed in the country to build up a new joint force, which it said will be uniquely defensive and aims to secure its borders.

Kherson is one of four regions in Ukraine that Moscow recently claimed to have annexed.

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