Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, condemned Putin’s attacks as “a war against the Ukrainian population”.

Speaking from the scene where a downed Russian missile fell on a residential building in a northern part of Kyiv this morning, he said: “It is crazy… you see the damage to the preschool… thanks god nobody was in preschool and school.

“Six buildings are damaged, nobody can live in these buildings. We evacuate right now the people.”

One person has been killed and four wounded, emergency services say.

Services say 12 people were rescued and 98 were evacuated from the five-storey building in the capital’s Podilskyi district.

Mr Klitschko, speaking to Sky News, called the attack “one more example of the Russian propaganda”.

He said: “One more fact – it is a war against civilians.

“I don’t see military people here. It’s not a military base, it’s just apartments, apartments from civilians.

“What they explain about some special operation”, he said, is “a war against civilians, against the Ukrainian population”.