KYIV: Russia has shelled more than 100 settlements over the last 24 hours — more than in any single day so far this year, Ukraine said on Wednesday. Moscow has fired millions of shells on cities, towns and villages since it invaded in February 2022, reducing several to rubble across the eastern part of the country.

"Over the last 24 hours, the enemy shelled 118 settlements in 10 regions," Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on social media. "This is the highest number of cities and villages that have come under attack since the start of the year," he added.

Kyiv also reported a Russian attack on an oil refinery in Kremenchuk, a central industrial city. There were no casualties but it took almost 100 firefighters several hours to put out the resulting blaze, Klymenko said.

Kyiv and the West fear Russia will escalate its attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure ahead of the cold winter — as it did last year. The overnight shelling in the northeastern Kharkiv region killed one person, and another was killed in the southern Kherson region, local officials said.

During the day, Ukraine said a Russian drone attack on the southern city of Nikopol killed a 59-year-old woman and injured four others. A rocket strike on a village in the Zaporizhzhia region killed a 52-year-old man. Both Kyiv and Moscow said they had also shot down enemy drones overnight.

Since the start of the war, Russia has dramatically ramped up its domestic arms production while also tapping its few foreign partners for ammunition supplies. Citing intelligence information, a South Korean lawmaker said Wednesday that North Korea has provided Russia with over one million artillery rounds. Western countries have meanwhile provided billions of dollars of military aid to Kyiv to help defend against Russian attacks.

Air raid alert

Russian officials have declared an air raid alert in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol in anticipation of further attacks from Ukraine. Sirens went off in the city early on Wednesday. Traffic on the Crimean bridge, linking the peninsula to Russia, as well as sea transport, were suspended.

The alert comes amid a string of Ukrainian attacks in recent weeks in and around Crimea, which was seized and annexed by Moscow in 2014. Kyiv’s forces have struck a Russian air base on the peninsula and the Black Sea Fleet command post in Sevastopol, as Ukraine seeks to weaken Russia’s control over the water.

Russia said Tuesday it had arrested a man involved in a Ukrainian-led assassination attempt on Oleg Tsaryov, an ex-Ukrainian MP and Moscow-backed separatist, who was shot last week at his home in Crimea.

Attempted assassination

Tsaryov was reportedly being lined up to lead a pro-Moscow puppet government in Kyiv, should Russia's offensive on the Ukrainian capital have succeeded last February. Russia's security agency the FSB said Tuesday it had arrested a 46-year old Russian citizen who "on the instructions of Ukraine's security service" had coordinated the attack.

It said the man confessed to his role in the plot and claimed he was working on orders from Kyiv during an interrogation, Russian state media reported. The FSB also said he got a job at the sanatorium where Tsaryov lived in order to scope him out ahead of the attack.

It published a video of what it said were home-made explosive devices unearthed in a search of his home. Citing unnamed sources, Ukrainian media had reported last Friday that Kyiv's security services were responsible for the attempted assassination.

Several high-profile backers of Russia's assault on Ukraine have been assassinated in Russia or Russian-controlled territory since the start of the conflict. Tsaryov, 53, was a pro-Russia lawmaker in Ukraine's parliament before a 2013-2014 revolution swept a pro-European government to power in Kyiv.

After Russia responded by seizing Crimea and civil war broke out, he became a separatist leader in eastern Ukraine. According to several reports, United States intelligence agencies believe the Kremlin was considering Tsaryov as a possible choice to lead a government in Kyiv if it had succeeded in removing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The FSB said Tsaryov's condition was stable following the shooting. – Agencies