Russia maintained pressure along the entire front line in Ukraine on December 14 as Kyiv was targeted by a wave of Russian drones early in the day and Kherson was hit by deadly shelling.
Residential buildings in the Dnipro district of Kherson were hit, said Yaroslav Yanushevych, the head of the Kherson regional military administration. An 8-year-old boy was killed. Yanushevych said doctors tried to resuscitate the boy, but his injuries were too severe.
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A woman who was struck on her way home during the shelling died on the spot from her injuries, he said on Telegram. Two other people were wounded in Kherson, which Ukraine recaptured from Russian forces last month.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine's presidential administration, said the shelling also hit the vehicle of repairmen who were fixing a gas line in a suburb northeast of the city of Kherson. There were no injuries in that attack.
In his evening video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said there was no calm on the front line, adding that Russia was destroying towns in eastern Ukraine with artillery "so that only bare ruins and craters" remain.
Two administrative buildings were damaged by the drones in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram after explosions were heard in the city's central Shevchenkivskiy district that is home to many government agencies and buildings.
A Kyiv resident who spoke with Current Time said she heard a buzzing sound, like a moped, before her husband told her to take cover.
Air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said Ukrainian air-defense systems had been effective, shooting down 13 drones. The capital remained largely calm after the foiled attack, which occurred around daybreak.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has faced a barrage of Russian air strikes across the country that caused extensive damage to its energy infrastructure and left millions without electricity, water, and heating.
Ihnat said the total number of Iranian-made drones launched on December 14 was being verified but that Russia had used some 400 since the first was shot down by Ukraine in mid-September.
It was unclear whether Russia was using a new batch of Iranian drones or had not yet used up its old stock, Ihnat said.
The latest wave of attacks comes as several media outlets quoted senior U.S. officials as saying that an announcement on Washington's plans to provide the Patriot missile-defense system to Ukraine could be made as soon as December 15.
The Patriot is regarded as one of the most advanced U.S. air-defense systems and is usually in short supply, with allies around the world vying for it.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine was doing everything it could to obtain more modern and powerful antiaircraft systems and had made important progress on the issue this week. He pressed Western leaders as recently as December 12 to provide more advanced weapons to help Ukraine.
WATCH: Using all their powers of persuasion, Ukrainian volunteers try to win over residents of Bakhmut, a city on the eastern front of the war with Russia, so they can take them to safer places to the west.
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With Russians On The Edge Of Town, A Scramble To Evacuate Civilians From Bakhmut
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Patriot systems would "definitely" be a legitimate target for Russia, but would not comment on unconfirmed reports.
Peskov also rejected a suggestion that Russia start withdrawing by Christmas, saying no cease-fire was planned.
In the midst of the fighting, Kyiv and Moscow carried out a prisoner exchange involving the release of 64 Ukrainian troops and a U.S. citizen. Presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak announced the exchange on social media, identifying the American as Suedi Murekezi.
Russia's state-run TASS news agency has reported that Murekezi was arrested in the eastern Donetsk region in June and charged with attending anti-Russian protests and inciting "ethnic hatred."
White House national-security spokesman John Kirby welcomed the news of the freed American but did not name him, citing privacy concerns.
Kirby also said the scale of the ongoing violence left little hope for an imminent end to hostilities.
"Just given what we're seeing in the air and on the ground in Ukraine, it's difficult to conclude that this war will be over by year's end," Kirby said. The active fighting taking place now is expected to "continue for some time going forward," he added.
Heavy fighting continued in the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiyivka in Donetsk.
Invading Russian forces have fought to seize Bakhmut for months as part of a grinding battle for control of the Donetsk region.
According to the General Staff, Russian troops in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhya regions "launched one air and 11 missile strikes, three of them on civilian infrastructure... [and] launched more than 60 attacks from multiple-rocket launchers" in the past 24 hours.
Dnipropetrovsk region Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said on December 14 that Russian forces shelled the cities of Nikopol and Marganets throughout the night.