War between Russia and Ukraine: Live updates: Drone strikes damage to buildings in Moscow as Kiev is hit again

The Ukrainian Air Force said on Tuesday that air defense teams shot down 29 of 31 Iranian-made drones launched by Russia overnight, most of them aimed at Kiev.

A 33-year-old woman was killed by falling debris during the attack and at least 13 people were injured, Ivan Vyhivskyi, the acting chief of the national police, said in a statement.

While Kiev has been under attack since the early days of the war, the pace and intensity of attacks in May have been shocking, even for civilians now accustomed to spending long hours in air raid shelters and sleepless nights crammed into corridors.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko captured the anger of many in the city during an appearance on national television. “If the Russians can make Kiev a nightmare, why are the people of Moscow resting?”

Not long after Mr. Klitschko spoke, Russian officials accused Ukraine of carrying out a drone strike on Moscow. There was no comment from the Ukrainian military, which has maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity about attacks in Russia. But Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Kiev was not “directly involved”.

Kyiv resident Yulia Honcharova reacted to the news of the Moscow attack with a mixture of anger and defiance. “I am not one of those who think we should bomb their residential areas at night, but I do want them to feel what it is like to live under constant alarms, like people in Kiev, Kharkiv, Dnipro,” she said.

Ukrainian officials have said the concentrated attacks on Kiev are most likely aimed at depleting air defense systems to make the capital more vulnerable and exhausting civilians.

Serhiy Popko, the head of Kiev’s military administration, said people in the city were reeling from attacks that were hours apart, not days.

“In the past 24 hours, the enemy has already carried out three attacks,” he said Tuesday morning.

Before dawn on Tuesday, Russia targeted Kiev with more than three dozen drones and cruise missiles fired from multiple directions to confuse air defense systems. Then, less than six hours later, Moscow launched a rare barrage of ballistic missiles on the city during the day, sending residents, including schoolchildren with their backpacks, running for cover.

The largely successful work of Ukraine’s air defense teams this month has saved dozens of lives and limited damage from the attacks.

But drones and missiles still pose a danger to civilians as debris rains down on the streets below.

“Everything that is destroyed in the air, unfortunately, flies to the ground and brings suffering to people,” Mykola Oleschuk, commander of the Ukrainian air force, said in a statement Tuesday morning.

Russia has stepped up attacks on Kiev that Ukraine is preparing for a counteroffensive.

Mr Zelensky, in his nightly speech to the nation on Monday, said any “terrorist attack” against the capital and other cities “brings us and the whole world to an obvious conclusion: Russia wants to follow the path of evil to the end.”

Mr. Zelensky vowed to respond to Russian aggression on the battlefield and said his government had approved the dates for the start of offensive operations.

“The decisions have been made,” he said.

Anna Lukanova And Natalya Novosolova reporting contributed.