Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure across Ukraine killed at least seven people on Wednesday, including two in Kyiv, where drone attacks have intensified this month both day and night, sending locals scurrying for cover.
The attacks came as President Volodymyr Zelensky was due to speak at the UN General Assembly in New York, where he was expected to appeal again for better air defences against the barrage of Russian drones and missiles.
Kyiv officials said more than 40 people were wounded in a wave of strikes which hit gas stations, offices, a college building, businesses and the rail network, while the internet was cut to some 100,000 households.
Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga accused Russia of targeting data centres "to disrupt the flow of information" and putting lives at risk by hindering civilian access to the threat from incoming missiles and drones.
"This is critical civilian infrastructure that ensures people can access life-saving information," he said. "It is not a military target. It is essential to keeping everyday life functioning."
AFP reporters in the city saw clouds of smoke across the city, while air-defence explosions were heard and the smell of burning filled the air as commuters headed to work.
Artem Derevyaha said he and his colleagues evacuated the canteen where they work after a first strike hit the building.
"Everyone went out, and we had literally just moved two metres away when the second strike happened," he said.
"You just have time to lie down on the floor, that's all. You don't have any thoughts in your head. Absolutely nothing."
- Cripple and destroy -
Zelensky has accused Russia of trying to "cripple the economy and destroy people's lives".
Concern is increasing in Ukraine about Russian attacks on the energy sector as winter's biting, sub-zero temperatures approach.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the United Nations General Assembly that Washington was pushing for both sides to end such attacks.
In a sign of how the Kyiv region has come under increasing attack, AFP analysis of data from the ACLED armed conflict monitor showed that there were more Russian strikes in the first 18 days of September than in any full month since the start of the war apart from March 2022.
A total of 118 incidents have been recorded so far this month. In March 2022, weeks after the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there were 174 in the whole month.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, at least four people were killed, including a young child, when a residential building was hit in Oleksandrivka, west of Kramatorsk, in the eastern Donbas region that has been the epicentre of the fighting.
Human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said four others had been wounded but up to eight more, including two infants, might still be under the rubble.
"Russia does not stop delivering systematic strikes on civilian targets both day and night," he added.
- Turkey protests -
In Ukraine's southern Black Sea port of Odesa, the captain of a cargo ship was killed in a Russian attack -- part of a wave of strikes from both sides on commercial vessels designed to hit export revenues.
The head of the Odesa region, Oleg Kiper, said the vessel was sailing on the Black Sea under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda.
At least 226 civilian and commercial vessels have been hit on the Black Sea since the start of the conflict, Turkey's IMEAK chamber of shipping said.
Seventy percent -- or 163 attacks -- took place in the first eight months of this year, prompting Turkey to call on both sides to halt attacks on civilian ships.
Russia's defence ministry said its latest attacks on the Kyiv region hit a warehouse and business linked to the production of drones for the Ukrainian armed forces. Similar sites were hit in the Odesa area, as well as a vessel delivering military cargo, it added.