Russia on Sunday carried out its third ballistic missile attack on Kyiv this month but preliminary data indicated most of the projectiles were shot down on approach, the military administration of the Ukrainian capital said.

"This is already the third ballistic strike on the capital in August, with exact intervals of six days between each attack," Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kyiv military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Popko said the Russians had most likely used North Korean-made ballistic missiles.

Reuters could not independently verify the type of missiles launched.

Separately, the commander of Ukraine's air force, Mykola Oleshchuk, said it had destroyed eight Russian attack drones and five out of eight missiles launched overnight across the country, including Kyiv.

Oleshchuk said anti-aircraft combat, anti-aircraft missile troops, mobile firing groups and electronic warfare units had downed 13 air targets in the Kyiv, Sumy and Poltava regions.

He said Russia launched eight missiles on Sunday morning, including three ballistic, three cruise and two guided aircraft missiles. Ukraine shot down five of them, he said, and the three missiles it missed had failed to reach their targets.

Kyiv officials said there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage in the capital. However, Kyiv region governor Ruslan Kravchenko said two private houses were destroyed and 16 others were damaged by falling debris.

"Russia always knows where it is hitting with its missiles and bombs, and this is deliberate and targeted Russian terror," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram.

He said Russia had launched more than 40 missiles, 750 guided aerial bombs and 200 attack drones this week against Ukrainian villages and cities.

Reuters could not independently verify the scale of damage in the Kyiv region. A Reuters witness heard blasts that sounded like air defence systems early on Sunday.

About two hours after the initial attack, Kyiv, its surrounding region and most of central and northeast Ukraine were under fresh raid alerts, with threats of more missiles heading towards the city, Ukraine's air force said.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two-and-a-half years ago and now holds about 18 percent of its territory in the east and south.

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Russia strikes Kyiv and denies indirect talks with Ukraine

Russia carried out its third ballistic missile attack on Kyiv this month but most of them were apparently shot down on approach, the city's military administration said on Sunday (August 18).

Residents in the Ukrainian capital were inspecting the crater caused by what's believed to be a North Korean missile.

Kyiv officials said there were no immediate reports of casualties in the capital.

Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of striking civilian infrastructure in the war and both deny doing so.

Meanwhile Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday his troops had strengthened positions in Russia's Kursk region nearly two weeks into their incursion.

He called for bold decisions by Kyiv's allies to allow long-range strikes.

These Ukrainian soldiers are conducting drills across the border from Kursk, where Ukraine says it has seized more than 80 settlements over 444 square miles since August 6.

It's the biggest invasion of Russia since World War Two.

Against the backdrop of that incursion, Belarus's president, a staunch ally of Russia's Vladimir Putin, spoke of a tense standoff along his country's border with Ukraine on Sunday.

President Alexander Lukashenko said Ukraine had stationed more than 120,000 troops along that border and Minsk had deployed nearly a third of its armed forces there.

Russia denied a report that Ukraine's Kursk attack had derailed indirect talks with Kyiv on halting strikes on energy and power targets.

A spokesperson for the foreign ministry denied those talks had been going on, saying "no one broke anything off because there was nothing to break off."

She was responding to a report in the Washington Post on Saturday...

...that Ukraine and Russia were planning to send delegations to Qatar this month to negotiate a landmark agreement halting strikes on critical civilian infrastructure.

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