Russian forces early Tuesday morning, October 18 launched attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities, with strikes on Kyiv and other major cities.

Two facilities were seriously damaged in the central city of Dnipro and power cuts were reported in Zhytomyr while Ukraine’s Presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko said there had been three explosions in Kyiv.

The unmanned drones, believed to be Iranian-made, killed at least eight people in the capital and the northern city of Sumy, and struck critical infrastructure, with power outages reported in hundreds of towns and villages.

It was not clear as at press time whether drones were involved in Tuesday’s attacks, although Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office, said an S-300 anti-aircraft missile was fired at a residential building in the southern city of Mykolaiv overnight, killing one person. The city’s flower market was also destroyed.

Infrastructure in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia was also hit, although local officials said no-one had been hurt.

Meanwhile, in one of the biggest prisoner swaps since Russia’s war began in February, 218 detainees were exchanged – including 108 Ukrainian women between Russia and Ukraine on Monday.