Russia-Ukraine war live: Kyiv air defences repel early morning Russian missile strikes

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The Vatican is involved in a secret peace mission to try to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Pope Francis has said.

“There is a mission in course now but it is not yet public. When it is public, I will reveal it,” the pope told reporters during a flight home after a three-day visit to Hungary according to Reuters.

“I think that peace is always made by opening channels. You can never achieve peace through closure. ... This is not easy.”

The pope added that he had spoken about the situation in Ukraine with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban and with Metropolitan (bishop) Hilarion, a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Budapest.

Pope Francis holds a news conference aboard his plane as he returns to the Vatican following a trip to Hungary. Photograph: Reuters

“In these meetings we did not just talk about Little Red Riding Hood. We spoke of all these things. Everyone is interested in the road to peace,” he said.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Francis has pleaded for peace practically on a weekly basis, and has repeatedly expressed a wish to act as a broker between Kyiv and Moscow. His offer has so far failed to produce any breakthrough.

Pope Francis, 86, has said previously that he wants to visit Kyiv but also Moscow on a peace mission.

Ukraine prime minister Denys Shmyhal met the pope at the Vatican on Thursday and said he had discussed a “peace formula” put forward by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Shmyhal also asked for help in the repatriation of children. Kyiv estimates nearly 19,500 children have been taken to Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea since Moscow invaded in February last year, in what it condemns as illegal deportations.

Residents of Kyiv are reportedly sheltering in the underground metro system:

Air defence systems were repelling missile attacks in the early hours on Monday in the Kyiv region, local authorities said, after air raid alerts were issued throughout all of Ukraine by emergency services.

“Air defences are at work!” Kyiv’s regional administration wrote on the Telegram messaging app, after reports of explosions heard in the region, according to Reuters.

“Keep calm! Stay in shelters until the air alarm goes off!”

Ukrainian media also reported blasts in the Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions. Reuters was unable to independently verify the reports of blasts.

Opening summary

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.

Air raid sirens have sounded in Kyiv and throughout Ukraine, with some reports that Russia has launched a wave of missiles. The armed forces have urged Ukrainians to go to shelters and warned that Kyiv was under “threat of a missile strike”. There was also a “threat to the northern, central and eastern regions”, it said on its Telegram channel. “Kyiv region – air defence works,” it added, as explosions were reported in the capital.

Elsewhere today:

• The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has warned that an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive could turn into a “tragedy” for Russia, and complained that his fighters lacked ammunition, in an interview with pro-Kremlin war correspondent Semyon Pegov. Prigozhin, whose group is spearheading Russia’s attack on the embattled city of Bakhmut, predicted a Ukrainian counterattack in mid-May and said Wagner had “only 10-15% of the shells that we need.”

• Pope Francis has said that the Vatican is involved in a peace mission to try to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “I am willing to do everything that has to be done. There is a mission in course now but it is not yet public. When it is public, I will reveal it,” Pope Francis told reporters during a flight home after a three-day visit to Hungary.

• The Russian army replaced its highest ranking general in charge of logistics, after days of rumours about the sacking of Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev. In a statement, the Russian defence ministry said Alexei Kuzmenkov – a former official from the National Guard – had replaced Mizintsev as “deputy defence minister of the Russian Federation, responsible for the logistical support of the Armed Forces.” The statement did not say why Mizintsev was replaced after just seven months in the job.

• Ukraine said its troops were holding on to parts of the eastern city of Bakhmut. “The enemy is unable to take control over the city, despite throwing all its forces into the battle and having some success,” said Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar. Russia’s defence ministry earlier said its forces had taken four blocks in western Bakhmut on Sunday, according to Reuters, which could not independently confirm the claim.

• Four people have been killed from an overnight Ukrainian strike on the Russian border village of Suzemka, the governor of Russia’s western Bryansk region said on Sunday. “Two more civilians have been found and removed from the rubble. Unfortunately, both of them died,” local governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram.

• Russian commanders have likely started “punishing breaches in discipline by detaining the offending troops in ‘Zindans’ which are improvised cells consisting of holes in the ground covered with a metal grille,” the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update. The army is thought to have been using “increasingly draconian” measures to enforce discipline since autumn 2022, the MoD said, and “especially since Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov assumed command of the operation in January 2023.”

• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had a “long and meaningful” telephone conversation with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron. The French presidency said Macron had reaffirmed France’s support for Ukraine to Zelenskiy, and that Macron had given an update on European coordination to give Ukraine military help.

• Funerals were held for some of the 23 people who were killed on Friday when two Russian missiles hit an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city Uman. Six children were among the dead.