Russia launched one of its largest airstrikes on Kyiv in over three years of war and struck a maternity ward in the southern city of Odesa in attacks that killed at least three people, officials said on Tuesday.

The overnight strikes followed Russia’s biggest drone assault of the war on Ukraine on Monday and were part of intensified bombardments that Moscow says is retaliation for attacks by Ukrainian forces on Russia.

The Russian attack also damaged Saint Sophia Cathedral, a UNESCO world heritage site located in the historic centre of Kyiv, Ukrainian Culture Minister Mykola Tochytsky said.

“The enemy struck at the very heart of our identity again,” Mykola Tochytskyi wrote on Facebook about the site he called “the soul of all Ukraine.”

Loud explosions shook Kyiv and blasts and fires lit up the sky in the early hours of Tuesday morning, leaving palls of heavy smoke over the city, Reuters witnesses said.

‘A difficult night for us all’

One person died in the attack on Kyiv, city authorities said. At least four people were treated in hospital after seven of the capital’s 10 districts were hit, the officials said.

“Today was one of the largest attacks on Kyiv,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. “Russian missile and Shahed [drone] strikes drown out the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace.”

Zelenskyy urged Ukraine’s allies to take steps to force Russia into peace, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called for immediate new sanctions and air defence systems.

Although Moscow and Kyiv have held two rounds of direct peace talks in recent weeks, the only tangible progress has been an agreement on exchanges of prisoners of war, and Russia has continued to advance along the front line in eastern Ukraine.