Ukraine declares air raid alert, air defences shoot down missiles

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Ukraine declared an air raid alert over the whole country on Thursday, and senior officials said air defences units were shooting down incoming Russian missiles.

Two missiles were spotted over the territory of the Mykolaiv region, its governor, Vitaly Kim, said on the Telegram messaging app.

"Missiles are flying inside the territory of Ukraine. At least two northwest through Mykolaiv region," he said.

Officials told the public to take shelter.

"The first Russian missiles have been shot down," Andriy Yermak, head of the president's office said.

Russia has targeted critical infrastructure with missile and drone strikes since October, causing sweeping blackouts and other outages during winter.

DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy producer, said it was conducting emergency power shutdowns in the capital, Kyiv, the surrounding region, and also the regions of Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk due to a danger of missile attack.

Overnight, the military said its anti-aircraft defences had shot down all 24 drones sent by Russia.

Fifteen of the drones were downed around the capital Kyiv where there were no reports of any damage.