The air force in Kiev, on Monday said it had repelled about a dozen Russian drone attacks overnight.

A total of 17 attacks with Iranian “kamikaze drones” of the type Shahed 136 were registered, the armed forces in Kiev announced on Tuesday morning.

The air force said that 14 drones were shot down.

Reports of explosions came from the port city of Odessa on the Black Sea, where authorities reported the destruction of infrastructure, including one business.

According to the Ukrainian military, almost 70 attacks were repelled by Russia, including rocket and artillery attacks.

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One of the focal points continued to be the region of Bakhmut in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, they said in Kiev.

According to them, the battle for the strategically important city of Bakhmut continues.

Earlier, the head of the Russian private army Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had declared that the administrative centre had been taken and thus the city had been “legally’’ captured.

The leadership in Kiev has rejected this.

Experts from the U.S. Institute for the Study of War (ISW), however, supported Prigozhin’s claim after analysing images.

According to the think tank, Wagner’s troops are advancing in the centre of Bakhmut with the support of regular units from the Russian armed forces.

Bakhmut has been contested since late summer.

This year, the fighting has turned into the bloodiest battle of the full-scale Russian invasion, which has lasted more than a year. (dpa/NAN)