Numerous explosions shook the Ukrainian capital Kyiv minutes after midnight on New Year’s Day.
The attacks on Kyiv on Sunday followed a barrage of at least 20 cruise missiles fired at targets across Ukraine in what officials there described as “New Year’s Eve terror.”
The new attack set off air raid sirens across the country, with some people in Kyiv taking to their balconies and shouting, “Honour to Ukraine! Honor the heroes”.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that the first explosions of the New Year started around 30 minutes after midnight, hitting two districts. He said there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The city military administration said that 23 “air objects” launched by Russia were destroyed and that the air defense systems were working.
Earlier in the evening President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainians would fight to victory in the war, now in its 11th month.
“We are fighting and will continue to fight. For the sake of the noun: ‘victory,'” he said in the emotional speech. “I want to say to all of you: Ukrainians, you are amazing! Look what we have done and what we are doing!”
“We fight as one team – the whole country, all our regions. I admire you all. I want to thank every invincible region of Ukraine,” he added.
The earlier round of attacks on Kyiv damaged Hotel Alfavito and a residential building, killing at least one person and injuring at least a dozen others. Klitschko said a Japanese journalist was among the wounded and was taken to a hospital.
Filmmaker Yaroslav Mutenko, 23, who lives in an apartment complex near Hotel Alfavito, said he was in the shower preparing to go to a New Year’s Eve party when he heard a bang. He said there had been similar blasts in the area during a previous attack in October, but nothing as loud as Saturday’s blast.
As he watched rescue workers cordon off the street in front of the hotel, he told AFP that he still planned to go to a friend’s party.
“Our enemies, the Russians, can destroy our calm, but they cannot destroy our spirit,” he said. “Why am I going to a party with friends? Because this year I understand that it is important to have people close by.”
Raids were also reported in the southern city of Mykolaiv, where a local official said seven people were injured.
Governor Vitaliy Kim said on Telegram that Russia targeted civilians with the raids, which Moscow has previously denied. “According to today’s trends, the occupiers are not exactly critical [infrastructure] …in many cities [they are targeting] just residential areas, hotels, garages, streets,” he said.
The attacks came at an unusually accelerated pace that alerted officials just 36 hours after Russia fired a barrage of missiles to damage energy infrastructure facilities on Thursday.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba highlighted the harsh civilian toll of this latest offensive – that “this time, Russia’s mass missile attack is deliberately targeting residential areas, not even energy infrastructure.” “War criminal Putin ‘celebrates’ the New Year by killing people,” he added, calling for Russia to be stripped of its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, described the attack as “terror on New Year’s Eve”.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, responded with a defiant message.
“With each new missile attack on civilian infrastructure, more and more Ukrainians are convinced of the need to fight until the complete collapse of Putin’s regime,” Telegram said.
Curfews from 7 p.m. to midnight local time remained in place across Ukraine, making public celebrations of the start of 2023 impossible.
Several regional governors posted messages on social media warning residents not to break New Year’s Eve restrictions.