'Unlike earlier attacks, these were longer, louder, more intense. At one point it seemed as if they would never end'

FOR a second terrifying night in a row, a massive number of Russian missiles and drones came crashing down on Ukrainian cities and villages.

- JOHN MARONE

They killed at least 12 people and injured more than 60 - many as they slept in their beds.

Air raid sirens began howling across the capital Kyiv between 10 and 11pm, followed by the window-shaking explosions of ballistic missiles later in the dead of night.

Between one and two o'clock in the morning, the skyline was lit up with crisscrossing search lights, some of which strangely illuminated the smoke from burning buildings in the distance.

The pre-dawn silence broke in sporadic spells anti-aircraft machine-gun fire, the boom of rockets and then, perhaps most ominously, the whir of nearby drones, which speed up into a frenzy just before they crash and explode.

Outside, on the street below could be heard the occasional, anxious voices and footsteps of people making their way to the local bomb shelter.

Unlike in earlier such attacks, those of Friday and Saturday night were longer, louder, more intense. It seemed at one point as if they would never end.