Kiev: Moscow trying to provoke early Ukraine offensive

Moscow has changed its tactic in the war with Ukraine, now in its 15th month, and has begun to deliberately target residential areas with missile strikes, according to the government in Kiev.

"There's no doubt that they are conducting direct attacks on civil residential houses or locations with many houses belonging to the civilian population," Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said on Ukrainian television early on Tuesday.

One aim of the change in tactics was to try and provoke a rushed counter-offensive, Podolyak said. During the colder winter months Russia had predominately targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

Kiev has been planning its spring counter-offensive to retake Russian-occupied territories for months, but has not disclosed any details.

Podolyak said the latest missile strikes were intended to test whether Ukraine was able to protect its own air space.

A barrage of Russian attacks over the past days has claimed many civilian lives, especially in the central city of Uman where over 20 people were reported dead after a missile hit a residential building on Friday.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a mother and her 3-year-old daughter were also killed by Russian fire. Kiev denies that military targets were hit in the attacks.

As Ukraine continues to fend off the all-out Russian invasion launched in February last year, "Russia does not have enough munitions to achieve success on the offensive," according to British intelligence.

While Moscow was giving "highest priority to mobilizing its defence industry," it was "still failing to meet war time demands," the British Ministry of Defence said in its latest update on the war published on Tuesday.

The ministry has been publishing daily updates on the war since the invasion began. Moscow sees these as part of a disinformation campaign.