TOP HEADLINES

• Explosions rocked the centrer of Kyiv on Monday morning as Russia launched a new air strike, hours after unleashing dozens of missiles and drones on targets across the country.

• Yuriy Ihnat, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, said the air strike on Kyiv had been conducted with ballistic missiles - thought to be Iskanders - and possibly also S-300 and S-400 missiles.

• Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said there were explosions in the capital's central districts and that emergency services had been dispatched. "Emergency services have responded to a call near the centre of the capital. The attack on Kyiv continues. Don't leave the shelters," he said.

• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that if any other country wanted to join a Russia-Belarus union there could be "nuclear weapons for everyone." READ MORE BELOW

• The Kremlin said on Monday that a "vacuum" was being formed in the area of arms control as a result of poor relations between a number of states.

• The governor of Russia's Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said several frontier settlements were being shelled simultaneously by Ukrainian forces. Vyacheslav Gladkov said two industrial facilities in the town of Shebekino had been shelled and that four employees had been wounded.

• Russia put five aircraft out of action in an attack on a military target in western Ukraine and caused a fire at the Black Sea port of Odesa in heavy air strikes early on Monday, Ukrainian officials said.

• Ukraine's military said the attack on Odesa port had caused a fire and damaged infrastructure but did not specify whether the damage threatened grain exports.

• Ukraine said it had shot down 29 of the 35 drones and 37 of 40 cruise missiles fired overnight by Russia.

• The Kyiv military administration said its air defenses had shot down over 40 of the "targets" fired at it in what was Russia's 15th air assault on the city this month.

• U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham disputed Russian criticism of his support for Ukraine, saying he had simply praised the spirit of Ukrainians in resisting a Russian invasion with assistance provided by Washington.

IN DETAIL

Belarus leader says there could be 'nuclear weapons for everyone'

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that if any other country wanted to join a Russia-Belarus union there could be "nuclear weapons for everyone".

Russia moved ahead last week with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, in the Kremlin's first deployment of such warheads outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, spurring concerns in the West.

In an interview on Russia's state television late on Sunday, Lukashenko, President Vladimir Putin's staunchest ally among Russia's neighbors, said that it must be "strategically understood" that Minsk and Moscow have a unique chance to unite.

"No one is against Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation," Lukashenko said. "If someone is worried ... (then) it is very simple: join in the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That's all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone."

He added that it was his own view - not the view of Russia.

Russia and Belarus are formally part of a Union State, a borderless union and alliance between the two former Soviet republics.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, whose nation of 20 million people has close historical ties with Moscow but has refused to recognise Russia's annexation of parts of Ukraine, dismissed Lukashenko's invitation to join the union.

"I appreciated his joke," Tokayev's office quoted him as saying on Telegram, adding that Kazakhstan was already a member of a broader Russian-led trade bloc, the Eurasian Economic Union, so no further integration was necessary.

"As for nuclear weapons, we do not need them because we have joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty," he said in a remark which could be interpreted as a rebuke to Moscow and Minsk.

"We remain committed to our obligations under those international documents."

Russia used the territory of Belarus as a launchpad for its attack on their common neighbor Ukraine in February last year, and since then their military cooperation has intensified, with joint training exercises on Belarusian soil.

On Sunday, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said that another unit of the S-400 mobile, surface-to-air missile systems arrived from Moscow, with the systems to be ready for combat duty soon.

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