By Olena Harmash and Pavel Polityuk
KYIV (Reuters) -Russia launched a missile strike on Kyiv and Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv, wounding several people and damaging residential buildings in both cities, as well as a gas pipeline, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.
Seven people were injured in the capital's districts of Solomianskyi and Sviatoshynskyi, its mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that several apartments had been set ablaze in the attack.
Air defence systems were repelling Russia's missile attack, Serhiy Popko, head of the military administration in Kyiv and his counterpart in the surrounding region, said on Telegram.
A non-residential building in the capital's Pechersk district had been damaged, one official said. Popko said several cars caught fire in Sviatoshyn, west of the capital's centre.
"Strong explosions, our house ... was shaking," lawmaker Iryna Geraschenko said on Telegram, as Reuters witnesses reported hearing several waves of explosions in Kyiv and around it.
Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv, said Russia also targeted his city.
"They're hitting Kharkiv again - there have already been several explosions," he said on Telegram.
A residential building was hit in the city of Kharkiv, said Oleh Sinehubov, the region's governor.
"There are people under the rubble," he said on Telegram.
The city's police said a gas pipeline was on fire as a result of the attack, and children were among the several people injured.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash, Pavel Polityuk and Gleb Garanich; Writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Tom Hogue and Clarence Fernandez)