There were no major damages or casualties in Kyiv, officials said, in what is so far the largest Russian aerial attack on Ukraine with more than 40 Iranian-made Shahed drones and missiles.

“Another difficult night for the capital,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.

Officials said the Russian missile bombardment is aimed at putting civilians in psychological distress.

“With these constant attacks, the enemy seeks to keep the civilian population in deep psychological tension,” Serhiy Popko, head of the city’s military administration said on a Telegram messaging channel.

Monday morning’s attack exceeds the largest drone barrage of 36 aerial targets launched on Kyiv the previous night, which killed one person and injured several.

A Russian overnight air attack struck a military target in Ukriane’s Khmelnytskiytskiy region, according to its governor’s office.

Moscow has been engaging in its largest aerial attack on Ukraine with more than 40 Iranian-made Shahed drones and missiles.

Russian forces fired air-based cruise missiles and Iranian-made Shahed drones overnight on Ukraine from nearly all directions, including the Caspian Sea area in the southeast, the top Ukrainian military commander said today.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has said there could be “nuclear weapons for everyone” if any other nation wanted to join the Russia-Belarus union.

“No one is against Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation,” Mr Lukashenko said in an interview published late yesterday.

“If someone is worried… [then] it is very simple: join the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That’s all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone.”

The leader said this was his own view and not of Russia.

Mr Lukashenko said that it must be “strategically understood” that Minsk and Moscow have a unique chance to unite.

This comes just a week after Russia moved to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in its neighbourhood ally Belarus. It is the first such deployment of warheads outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, sparking widespread concerns in the West as the war continues against Ukraine near both nation’s territories.

On Sunday, the Belarusian defence ministry announced that another unit of the S-400 mobile, surface-to-air missile systems arrived from Moscow, with the systems to be ready for combat duty soon.

Russian forces fired air-based cruise missiles and Iranian-made Shahed drones overnight on Ukraine from nearly all directions, including the Caspian Sea area in the southeast, the top Ukrainian military commander said today.

“67 air targets were destroyed by the forces and means of the air command in cooperation with the air defence of other components of the defence forces of Ukraine: 37 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles, 29 Shahed-136/131 attack and 1 UAV reconnaissance of operational-tactical level,” said Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Ukraine.

“The enemy fired up to 40 X-101/X-555 air-based cruise missiles from nine Tu-95ms strategic aircraft from the Caspian Sea area.

The enemy attacked from the north and south with Iranian Shahed-136/131 UAVs. About 35 strike drones in total,” the official said on Telegram.

All targets were destroyed, the official said.

Foreign investors withdrew about $36bn (£29bn) from Russia, after leaving the country and selling their businesses between March 2022 and March 2023, according to the data from the Central Bank, Moscow’s state news agency RIA reported today.

This comes a week after the Russian central bank played down the impact of foreign company exits, saying that around 200 sale deals had been finalised in the March 2022-2023 period.

It said 20 per cent of these deals involved large asset sales – those in excess of $100m (£80m).

Several of the world’s largest companies have left or scaled back their operations in Russia after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

The head of Russia’s private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin said the regular exchange of war prisoners with Ukraine last week was carried out peacefully.

“Maybe I don’t know something or I don’t guess about something, but on 25 May, a regular exchange of prisoners was carried out in a very calm manner like never before. The Wagner PMC [Private Military Company] group, which has always dealt with exchanges, arrived at a point that was agreed in advance,” the mercenary chief said on Telegram in a statement.

He added: “A Ukrainian group drove up there, brought prisoners, exchanged, and, in fact, you saw all this on the screen.”

It was an “absolutely standard exchange” including Wagner troops, Russian Guard’s forces and Russian defence ministry’s soldiers, wherein the prisoners were transferred from Ukraine.

After the exchange, the released Russian troops were sent to their subordinate structure, he said.

Wagner had released footage of a prisoner exchange with Ukraine, just hours after it claimed to have initiated its withdrawl from Bakhmut last week.

Volodymyr Zelensky thanked his air defence forces, ground forces, mobile forces group and anti-aircraft missile troopers in his nightly address to Ukrainians as he pledged an end to Russian attacks.

“Throughout its history, Kyiv has seen various meannesses from invaders. It has survived them all, and it will survive the ruscists. None of them will be here. Kyiv and all our cities, our entire Ukraine, will put an end to the history of Moscow’s despotism, which has been bringing enslavement to many different peoples for a very long time,” he said in his nightly address.

He added: “Neither Shaheds nor any other means of terror that it humiliatingly seeks around the world will save it. Because strength is in people, it is in cities, it is in life, and when life, people, and the most important cities for culture are despised, Russia will only face defeat.”

The Ukrainian capital Kyiv was shaken by several explosions in the early hours today after Russia fired more than 40 missiles and drones on the besieged country, marking the second overnight attack in a row.

This is the 15th such aerial assault by Russia on Kyiv this month.

“A missile shot down near Kyiv,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. “Air defence working!”

Blasts were heard in several districts of Kyiv, including the historic neighbourhood of Podil where debris from the attack fell on a house and damaged a roof, the mayor said.

The Monday attack appeared to include a combination of missiles and drones, follows the largest drone barrage launched on Kyiv the previous night, which killed one person and injured several.

Ukrainian air defence force shot down more than 40 Russian aerial targets moving towards Kyiv in the early hours today, Kyiv city military administration said on Telegram.

The huge barrage of munitions included drones and missiles, the military administration said.

Russia‘s ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, openly defended the country’s attacks on Ukraine during a new appearance on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg (28 May).

As the journalist brought up recent devastation from a missile hitting a hospital, the ambassador appeared agitated.

“The problem is the shooting is going on for nine years”, he said, blaming ‘US weapons’ as the cause of mass destruction, and denying Russian war crimes taking place.

Instead, Kelin said he had ‘documentation’ of crimes being committed by Ukrainian troops since the invasion began.