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KYIV, Ukraine, Nov 3 : Russia pummelled Ukraine in overnight strikes, Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday, as a flare-up in fighting dashed hopes of progress towards peace in the nearly five-year war.

The strikes rained down across the country, killing dozens of people, forcing patients to evacuate a medical facility and triggering a wave of ballistic missile alerts.

In Russia, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said nearly 500 drones heading towards the capital region were destroyed.

The attacks followed a rare pause in the fighting between Russia and Ukraine in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, which ended Sunday.

The truce, which was the longest in the war that erupted in February 2022, enabled a humanitarian mission to the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky.

Hours after the local ceasefire ended, Russia targeted a village in Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, killing at least 26 people, the acting regional governor said.

On Tuesday, authorities in Zaporizhzhia said Russian bombing had killed 29 people.

The head of Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov, accused Moscow of "striking people who had come to receive humanitarian aid".

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the regional military administration's head Oleg Synegubov said a Russian strike hit a medical facility, wounding 25 people, forcing around 200 patients to evacuate and damaging a building, windows and cars.

Ukraine's army warned of ballistic missiles heading towards Kharkiv and various other parts of the country, including the capital Kyiv, Dnipro and Sumy.

Dnipropetrovsk's regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said a Russian strike hit critical infrastructure in the Dnipro, as well as in President Volodymyr Zelensky's hometown Kryvy Rig.

Russia's defence ministry said Tuesday it had carried out a "massive strike" on energy facilities across Ukraine, and port infrastructure in the Odessa region.

Ukraine's neighbour Poland said it activated air defences aimed at protecting its airspace, particularly in border areas.

-- 'More killings' --
The strikes came as Britain and France announced around 2,800 troops from 10 European countries will stage military exercises this month in support of Ukraine.

The soldiers from 10 European countries will meet in Poland for the first exercise of a new multinational force -- but it has no offensive mission and is only to be deployed once a ceasefire is agreed to end the war.

In a fresh push for diplomacy as the conflict grinds through its fifth year, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said Tuesday that Washington-led talks between Russia and Ukraine were set to resume next week.

President Donald Trump has pushed for a settlement to the war but there has been no breakthrough.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky slammed the deadly Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia on Monday, which he said hit a school distributing humanitarian aid.

"There was a moment when the next steps (after the Oleshky truce) could have shown that progress toward peace was possible," he said.

"With these killings, Russia is sending an entirely opposite signal: Russia is counting on more killings. There must be a response to this."

Acting regional governor Mykhailo Semikin said on Telegram that two rescue workers and four police officers were among the dead.

Last week's ceasefire, which was brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump, enabled an evacuation of people in Russian-occupied Oleshky to both Ukraine-controlled territory and Moscow-annexed Crimea.

A senior Ukrainian figure told AFP on Sunday that Russia refused a Ukrainian offer to extend the truce.

Ukraine's military also alleged that Moscow had used the pause in fighting to "fortify its positions".

The Kremlin did not deny the accusations, with its spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters Monday: "This is a completely normal practice in such situations."

He alleged the Ukrainian army had also used pauses in fighting in the past to regroup.

Moscow saw the Oleshky humanitarian mission as "successful", Peskov added, praising the "good cooperation between all sides" and singling out the role of its human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova.

Lantratova oversaw the ceasefire alongside her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets in one of the most substantial instances of Russian-Ukrainian cooperation since the start of the war.

The Kremlin said that no other similar missions were being planned "at the moment".