Russia has hit Ukraine with multiple missile strikes across the country with blasts in Kyiv, Lviv and Kharkiv, it is reported.
Many Ukrainians have told on social media of heavy shelling with Kharkiv targeted on the east but also Lviv has been bombed on the west and the Ukrainian capital Kyiv has had some of its worst attacks since March.
Air raid sirens have been ringing out throughout the night in major cities in Ukraine while there have also been claims that shelling has come from the direction of Russia's ally Belarus.
One person said of bombings in Zhytomyr, to the west of Kyiv, that it has been the worst so far.
"Zhytomyr is being blown apart today, we have already had three or four attacks (and I am even quiet now about explosions, there are already so many of them that I don't take notice). You sit and think it has stopped and then it starts again. Never before has our city been sieged like this. I hope it is okay with you," she wrote on Twitter.
One person in Kyiv said she had heard 11 explosions and another heard fighter jets over the Ukrainian capital.
Similarly a Twitter user wrote: "A series of powerful explosions in Kyiv, new blasts are rocking Zhytomyr. A massive missile attack was carried out on targets in the capital and we don't know what the results are.
"We can hear air defence missiles in the sky with missiles from aircraft probably from Belarus."
Some have also posted images from Kyiv which appear to show missiles in the sky.
It comes as Ukraine is set to pull its troops from the ruined city of Sievierodonetsk after weeks of street fighting and bombardment, in what would be a significant gain for Russia as it grinds out its offensive in the east.
Russian troops also occupied a town about six miles further south, both sides said on Friday, as Moscow closed in on the last slivers of Ukrainian-held territory in the industrial region of Luhansk.
Moscow said it had encircled about 2,000 Ukrainian and what it called foreign troops in the area.
At the same time Russian strikes this week on Kharkiv, near the Russian border, have been the worst for weeks in an area where normal life had been returning since Ukraine pushed Moscow's forces back last month.
Volodymyr Zelensky had warned the fighting may escalate this week with the EU summit on Thursday where European leaders approved Ukraine's formal candidature to join the Union.
The decision led Russia on Friday to say it would have negative consequences and amounted to the EU's "enslaving" neighbouring countries.
Russia has long opposed closer links between Ukraine, a former Soviet state, and Western clubs like the EU and the NATO military alliance.
"There were massive air and artillery strikes in Donbas," Zelensky said in a video address released early Thursday, adding Russia wants "to destroy the entire Donbas step by step."
