Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) - Ukraine said on Sunday it had shot down most of the three dozen drones Russia launched overnight at the Kyiv region.

The latest attack came as Ukraine’s forces were calling more Western support for their counter-offensive to gain back land in the east and south.

“We recorded the launch of 33 Shahed (drones) in the direction of Kyiv… 26 were destroyed,” the Ukrainian Air Force said.

An AFP journalist in the Ukrainian capital heard multiple explosions – presumably from air defence – starting around 1:30 am (2230 GMT).

“Drones entered the capital in groups and from different directions,” Sergiy Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, wrote on Telegram.

Four people were wounded, including one wo was hospitalised with injuries to the head and limbs, Kyiv official Ruslan Kravchenko said.

More than a hundred homes were damaged by falling debris, Kravchenko added.

Ukrainian emergency services published photos of rescuers putting out fires in several districts.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said a resident suffered an “acute stress attack” and was receiving medical assistance after debris fell in the central Podil district.

- ‘Caught in crossfire’ -

Kyiv witnessed drone and missile attacks almost every night this winter and spring, as Russia pounded cities across Ukraine in a bid to wipe out Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and destroy morale.

The strikes subsequently became less frequent but last month the capital faced the “most powerful strike” since spring. More than 20 drones and missiles were destroyed.

On Tuesday, as summer comes to a close, Klitschko told journalists that the city was already preparing for a “tough” winter.

Nearer the front in the east, several aid workers were killed or wounded when a missile hit the vehicle in which they were travelling, the NGO they worked for reported.

Spanish media said the dead included Emma Igual, the 32-year-old director of the Road to Relief charity, which evacuates civilians from the front line in Ukraine.

The aid workers had left Sloviansk and were heading to Bakhmut to assess the needs of civilians “caught in crossfire” in the town of Ivanivske.

Fierce combat is underway in the east and south of Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces are seeking to push Russian troops out of the territories they have seized.

Ukrainian officials at a conference on Friday and Saturday urged the West not to lose any time and provide Kyiv with powerful weapons to back up its forces.

Newly appointed Defence Minister Rustem Umerov called for more military equipment.

“We are grateful for all the support provided… We need more heavy weapons,” Umerov said.

“We need them today. We need them now.”

- ‘Collaborators’ -

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the provision of Western weapons was slowing down, hampering the counter-offensive against Russian positions.

“The enemy is strong. They have more people and weaponry,” Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar acknowledged.

On Sunday Ukrainian forces announced they had made a modest advance – of more than a kilometre (mile) – in an area of the southern front line.

Ukraine has been leading a laborious counter-assault since June, a far cry from the lightning successes it achieved in autumn 2022.

This time, Ukrainian forces are contending with well-entrenched Russian defences built over several months of occupation.

The deputy head of Ukraine’s intelligence agency, Vadym Skibitsky, estimated on Saturday that Russia has more than 420,000 soldiers in the east and south of Ukraine, including Crimea.

The number, he said, did not include special law enforcement units “that maintain occupation (Moscow-installed) authorities on our territories”.

Russia last year claimed to have annexed four regions of Ukraine – Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – despite never full controlling them.

Russia is holding local and regional elections this week, both at home and in the Ukrainian regions it claims, in a bid to legitimise its annexation of the latter.

The ballots organised by Moscow-installed officials in the Ukrainian regions have been widely denounced as a sham.

Kyiv has urged its allied condemn the “fake” elections.

Ukraine’s SBU security service has warned it has a list of “collaborators” helping to organise the voting, which ends on Sunday, and has vowed to punish them.