KYIV – A day after President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine appeared to warn of more attacks inside Russia, two Russian missiles slammed into a residential building and university complex in his home town, Kryvyi Rih, on Monday, killing at least six people and injuring dozens of others, Ukrainian officials said.

The unusually pointed warning from Ukraine’s leader followed a series of apparent Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, suggesting that Kyiv was stepping up its efforts to bring the war home to Russians. But Russia’s weapons have proved far deadlier for civilians, as they were again on Monday in Kryvyi Rih, a steel-producing central Ukrainian city roughly 160km from the front line.

Mr Serhii Lysak, head of the region’s military administration, said six people had been killed and 75 injured.

More than 20 of those were hospitalised, he wrote in a message on Telegram.

Shortly after the attack, Mr Zelensky posted a video from the scene that showed smoke pouring from a building that had a gaping hole where several upper floors had been. Hours later, he said that Russia had used Iskander ballistic missiles in the attack, adding that a 10-year-old girl and her mother were among the dead.

“An ordinary family in an ordinary city whose lives were destroyed by Russian murderers,” he said in his nightly address.

On Tuesday, Ukraine responded with its own volley of missiles and drones.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said it thwarted attacks by Ukrainian sea drones on its navy and civilian ships in the Black Sea.

“During the night, the armed forces of Ukraine made an unsuccessful attempt to attack the Sergei Kotov and Vasiliy Bykov patrol ships of the Black Sea fleet with three unmanned sea boats,” the ministry said in a statement.

Later, in its daily briefing, the ministry said navy ships destroyed three more sea drones targeting civilian vessels.

Mr Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Mr Zelensky, told Reuters: “Undoubtedly, such statements by Russian officials are fictitious and do not contain even a shred of truth. Ukraine has not attacked, is not attacking and will not attack civilian vessels, nor any other civilian objects.”

What Kyiv acknowledged was another attack on a high-rise building in Moscow’s business district that houses three Russian ministries. Kyiv said Moscow should expect more drone attacks and “more war”.

The building that was hit is known as the “IQ quarter”, which houses the economic development, digital, and industry and trade ministries.

A video obtained by Reuters showed a section of its glass facade, high above the ground, had been destroyed by the impact.

“At the moment, experts are assessing the damage and the state of the infrastructure for the safety of people in the building. This will take some time,” Ms Darya Levchenko, an adviser to the economy minister, said on Telegram.

Moscow has come under repeated drone attacks since early May, when two drones were fired at the roof of a building in the Kremlin complex.

While the incidents have not caused casualties or major damage, they have provoked widespread unease and sit awkwardly with the Kremlin’s narrative that Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine is proceeding according to plan.

“Indeed, a threat exists, it is obvious, but measures are being taken,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said on Monday that strikes in Moscow and across Russia are to be expected as long as Russian forces wage an unjust war.

“Until the occupiers leave the Ukrainian territory, until the criminals are punished, there are no safe places in the aggressor state,” said Mr Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence. NYTIMES, REUTERS