Russia fires new airstrikes as UN announces grain deal

Kyiv: Russian airstrikes inflicted more damage on Ukraine on Thursday, with the latest barrage smashing into energy infrastructure, apartment buildings and an industrial site.

At least four people were killed and five others wounded in drone and missile strikes around the country, authorities said.

Separately, U.N. Secretary-General Ant nio Guterres announced an extension of a four-month-old deal to ensure the safe delivery of export of grain, foodstuffs and fertilisers from Ukraine through the Black Sea just days before it was set to expire.

Guterres says the United Nations is also "fully committed" to removing obstacles that have impeded the export of food and fertiliser from Russia, which is one of two agreements struck between the two countries and Turkey in July.

The deals signed in Istanbul are aimed to help bring down prices of food and fertiliser and avoid a global food crisis.

In Kyiv, the city's military administration said air defences shot down at least two cruise missiles and five Iranian-made exploding drones.

With the Kremlin's forces on the ground being pushed back, Russia has increasingly resorted in recent weeks to aerial onslaughts aimed at energy infrastructure in parts of Ukraine it doesn't hold.

Ukrainian air defences this week appear to have had far higher rates of successful shoot-downs than during previous barrages last month, analysts say.

The improvement results in part from Western-supplied air defence systems.

But some missiles and drones still get through.

Russian strikes hit Ukraine's southern Odesa region and the city of Dnipro for the first time in weeks on Thursday morning, and air raid sirens sounded all across the country amid fears that Moscow unleashed another large-scale missile attack.

An infrastructure target was hit on the Odesa region, Gov. Maksym Marchenko said on Telegram, warning about the threat of a "massive missile barrage on the entire territory of Ukraine."

Multiple explosions were also reported in Dnipro, where two infrastructure objects were damaged and at least one person was wounded, according to the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

Air defense systems were operating in the central Kyiv region, Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said. The Kyiv city administration said two missiles were shot down over the capital.

Officials in the Poltava, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi and Rivne regions urged residents to stay in bomb shelters amid the persisting threat of missile strikes.

Thursday's blast follows the huge barrage of Russian strikes on Tuesday, the biggest attack to date on Ukraine's energy infrastructure that also resulted in a missile hitting Poland.

Russia has increasingly resorted to targeting Ukraine's power grid as winter approaches as its battlefield losses mount.

The most recent barrage followed days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by one of its biggest military successes the retaking last week of the southern city of Kherson.