Kyiv, Jan 1 (Portal) – Russia continued intensive attacks on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine early in the New Year after a barrage of rockets was fired on Saturday and air raid sirens wailed for hours overnight.
The command of the Ukrainian Air Force said they destroyed 45 Iranian-made Shahed drones – 32 of them after midnight on Sunday and 13 late on Saturday.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signaled that the war, now in its 11th month, will continue in a pugnacious New Year’s speech, a speech that contrasted with messages of gratitude and unity from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
As sirens wailed in Kyiv for more than 4 hours, some people shouted from their balconies: “Glory to Ukraine! Honor the heroes!” Portal witnesses reported.
Across the country, curfews remained in effect from 7 p.m. to midnight, making public celebrations at the beginning of 2023 impossible.
Fragments of destroyed rockets caused minimal damage in the center of the capital and according to preliminary reports there were no wounded or casualties, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on social media.
Ukraine’s high command said in a report on Sunday that Russia had launched 31 missile and 12 airstrikes across the country in the past 24 hours.
US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said on Twitter: “Russia coldly and cowardly attacked Ukraine in the early hours of the New Year. But Putin still doesn’t seem to understand that Ukrainians are made of iron.”
Kiev Police Chief Andrii Nebytov posted a photo on his Telegram messaging app that allegedly shows a drone used in the attack on the capital, with a handwritten sign in Russian that reads “Happy New Year.”
“These debris are not on the front lines, where fierce fighting is taking place, they are here, on a sports field where children are playing,” Nebytov said.
People gathered next to a Christmas tree to celebrate New Year’s Eve ahead of a curfew, amid the Russian attack on Ukraine, in front of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine December 31, 2022. Portal/Valentyn Ogirenko
At least one person was killed and a dozen injured in attacks in Kyiv on Saturday. They followed many bombings in recent months, which Russia aimed mainly at Ukraine’s energy and water infrastructure.
The latest attacks have damaged infrastructure in Sumy in the north-east of the country, Khmelnytskyi in the west and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south-east and south, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said.
“Let the day be quiet,” Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region, said early Sunday after reporting that several communities in the region came under heavy shelling overnight, wounding one.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of southern Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said independently that the night shelling on the outskirts of the city of Shebekino damaged homes, but there were no casualties.
Russian media also reported several Ukrainian attacks on Moscow-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, with local officials saying at least nine people were injured.
Russian state news agency RIA, citing a local doctor, reported that six people were killed in an attack on a hospital in Donetsk on Saturday.
There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv, which almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine.
Portal could not independently verify the Russian media reports.
Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, calling it a “special operation” to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine, which he said posed a threat to Russia. Kyiv and its western allies say Putin’s invasion was merely an imperialist land grab.
Russian forces have been locked in bitter fighting in eastern and southern Ukraine for months, trying to defend the areas that Moscow declared annexed in September and that make up Ukraine’s broader Donbass industrial region.
Reporting by Gleb Garanich, Valentyn Ogirenko, Dan Peleshchuk and Sergiy Karazy; writing from Lidia Kelly; Edited by Daniel Wallis, Rosalba O’Brien and Kim Coghill
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.