Moscow has said it is stepping up its strikes on military targets in Ukraine in retaliation for what it said was a devastating Ukrainian drone strike.Moscow:

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the war in Ukraine had entered a "different paradigm" due to what it called "inhumane acts of terror" carried out by Kyiv's military against civilians.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the remarks to reporters when asked about Russia's massive overnight strikes on Ukrainian cities, which killed at least 17 people and wounded 100.

Moscow has said it is stepping up its strikes on military targets in Ukraine in retaliation for what it said was a devastating Ukrainian drone strike on a student dorm in Russian-controlled Luhansk in eastern Ukraine last month which killed 21 people. Ukraine denies targeting the dorm and said it was targeting a drone command centre in the area.

"If the Kyiv regime is consciously committing such inhumane ... acts of terror against civilians, against children, then this is an entirely different paradigm," Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said.

He said Russia was systematically striking Ukrainian military targets in Kyiv and other cities and that the Ukraine peace process was on hold. Russia remained in touch with the United States however, he added. Washington has long been trying to broker an agreement between Kyiv and Moscow.

"We remain open to peace negotiations," said Peskov, repeating the Kremlin's stance - which Kyiv says amounts to a demand to capitulate - that the war could end immediately if it agreed to withdraw its forces from four Ukrainian regions Russia claimed as its own in 2022 in what Ukraine said was a bloody land grab.