Russia rained down a barrage of missiles on at least five railway stations across central and western Ukraine early Monday morning, hours after America’s top diplomat and defence official met President Volodymyr Zelensky in a high-stakes visit to Kyiv that was carried out largely in secret.

The missile strikes were part of a broader assault aimed at crippling critical infrastructure in Ukraine.

Secretary of state Antony J. Blinken and defence secretary Lloyd J. Austin III met Zelensky for three hours late Sunday evening. The pair said they travelled to and from the capital by train but the details of the journey were a tightly guarded secret.

It is unclear when they crossed the border out of Ukraine into Poland but they held a news conference at a warehouse in Poland at around the same time as the strikes were being reported.