Oxford doctor and writer Rachel Clarke is sheltering in a bomb shelter in Kyiv.

Russia bombed cities across Ukraine during rush hour on Monday morning in apparent revenge strikes after President Vladimir Putin declared an explosion on the bridge to Crimea to be a terrorist attack.

Several missiles hit downtown Kyiv as loud explosions were heard around the city in the first attack on Ukraine’s capital since late June.

Residents fled to bomb shelters as smoke rose over the city.

Dr Clarke, a palliative care specialist, tweeted: "Can’t lie. Very scared. In bomb shelter at Kyiv central station with ⁦Dr Henry Marsh and ⁦Andrii Myzak. Assured the bombs are far away but they’re close enough to reverberate. This is what Ukrainians have endured for 8 months now."

Dr Clarke has been travelling with Dr Marsh taking a "£15,000 cranial ventriculoscope" to a hospital in the Ukrainian capital.

It enables surgeons to remove excess fluid from the brain "and it will save lives", she tweeted.

Dr Clarke, a former TV journalist captured the realities of life on the NHS frontline in her autobiography Your Life in My Hands.