Air defences shoot down 15 of 18 missiles launched at Ukraine in dead of night

Ukrainian air defence crews destroyed 15 out of 18 missiles launched by Russian forces in the early hours of May 1 morning, the military said, as air raid sirens blared across the country for more than three hours.

"Around 2:30 am (1130 GMT), the Russian invaders attacked Ukraine from strategic aviation planes," a post on the Telegram channel of Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, read.

It added that 15 out of the 18 missiles launched had been destroyed, Reuters reports.

Kyiv's city officials wrote on the Telegram messaging app that all missiles directed at the capital were destroyed.

"According to (preliminary information), no casualties among the civilian population and no destruction of residential facilities or infrastructure have been recorded," the city administration said.

Air defence systems were also called into action to shield the Kyiv region, which is a separate administrative entity from the city, from Russian missiles, officials said.