First-graders yawn as they participate in Monday’s traditional start of the school year known as “Knowledge Day” in Makeiivka, in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. Alexey Alexandrov/Associated Press

KIEV, Ukraine — Russia began shelling Kiev overnight with drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, officials said Monday, as children returned to schools in Ukraine. Some students said classes were canceled because of damage from the attack.

Several series of explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital. Fragments of captured missiles and drones fell on every district of Kiev, injuring three people and damaging two kindergartens, the Interior Ministry reported. City authorities reported multiple fires.

After more than 900 days of war, Russia and Ukraine show no signs of letting up or coming closer to the negotiating table. Both sides are conducting ambitious ground offensives, with the Ukrainians pushing into Russia’s Kursk region and the Russians pushing deeper into the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, part of the industrial Donbas region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that the Ukrainian attack on Kursk would not stop Russian forces from advancing in eastern Ukraine.

“The main task that the enemy set for itself — stopping our offensive in Donbas — has not been achieved by them,” Putin told students during a trip to Siberia. He predicted that the Kursk offensive would fail and that Kiev officials would want to “move to peace talks.”

Speaking in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporozhye, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian military’s operation in Kursk had drawn Russian troops away from southern Ukraine, but admitted it had not yet succeeded in drawing Russian forces away from the eastern frontline, where the city of Pokrovsk was at risk of falling.

“We see that it is difficult there, and the most combat-ready Russian brigades have been concentrated in this area, because this has always been their main goal – Donbas. Complete, total occupation of Donbas: Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” Zelensky said.

He said last month that the aim of the attack on Kursk was to create a buffer zone that could prevent further attacks by Moscow abroad.

Russia fired 35 missiles and 26 Shahed drones at Ukraine on the night from Sunday to Monday, the Ukrainian Air Force said. Nine ballistic missiles, 13 cruise missiles and 20 drones were shot down, it said.

Firefighters extinguish a fire that broke out on Monday in a university building in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, after a rocket hit the building. Vasilisa Stepanenko/Associated Press

Kiev residents rushed to bomb shelters.

Oksana Argunova, an 18-year-old student, said she was still shaking from the experience that scared her.

“I woke up, my neighbor was shouting, ‘Let’s go (to the shelter), there are big explosions.’ We all ran,” Argunova told the Associated Press.

Monday was the first day back to school after the summer holidays. In Ukraine, this day is associated with ceremonies and rituals, with students and often teachers wearing traditional costumes.

But the massive airstrikes have taken their toll. Last week, an F-16 fighter plane that Ukraine received from its Western partners crashed. The pilot, one of the few Ukrainians trained to fly the planes, was killed.

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, visiting Ukraine for the first time since taking office, traveled with Zelensky to Zaporozhye, 25 miles from the front line.

They visited an underground school, and Schoof announced that his government would give Ukraine $221 million to help protect and repair its energy infrastructure, which is targeted by Russian bombs almost daily.

“It should never be normal for children to have to go to school underground. It should never be normal for people’s homes to be cold because power plants have been bombed,” Schoof said.

He said the Netherlands would continue to supply F-16 fighters and ammunition to Ukraine and noted a plan unveiled last month by Republican U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham to allow retired F-16 pilots from other countries to join the fight in Ukraine.

“That would be an interesting idea because then you could just speed up the process of deploying the F-16. But we have to look at these things with all the countries involved in the F-16 coalition,” Schoof said.

In Kiev, children and parents gathered outside a destroyed school as firefighters extinguished the fire and cleared away the rubble.

A mother arrived with her 7-year-old daughter, Sophia, unaware she had been hit. It was Sophia’s first day at a new school, her mother said, after a terrifying night.

“We hid in the bathroom, where it was relatively safe,” the mother said, giving only her first name, Olena.

Ukraine and Russia regularly target each other with long-range drone and missile strikes, sometimes firing more than 100 weapons in the air, indicating they continue to invest in weapons production.

Russian air defense forces intercepted 158 Ukrainian drones overnight, including two over Moscow and nine over surrounding regions, the Defense Ministry said.

The Ukrainian headquarters of the Danish humanitarian organization DanChurchAid was destroyed by shell fragments, according to the head of the organization, Jonas Nøddekær.

Elsewhere, 18 people were injured in a Sunday evening strike at a children’s social and psychological rehabilitation center and an orphanage in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, regional authorities said. The regional prosecutor’s office said there were no children at the center and that among the injured were people living in nearby homes.

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