“Boom, Happy New Year.” A Russian soldier wrote this sentence on one of the drone bombs that were fired on Kyiv early on Sunday morning. The fuselage of the drone that fell on a soccer field was shared on social media by police in the Ukrainian capital. The Kremlin stuck to the script and hailed 2023 with full-scale attacks on the occupied country and lashed out at Kyiv. Between the afternoon of December 31 and early morning of January 1, 35 drones and cruise missiles arrived in the city. Across the country the number exceeded fifty.
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While Russian President Vladimir Putin called for fraternization of “Russia’s historic territories” in his New Year’s address, his missiles and drones were preparing for a night of terror over Kyiv. For 12 hours, between 2:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 a.m. Sunday, the explosions were constant over the capital. Of the 35 Shahed missiles and drones fired at the city, 32 were shot down by anti-aircraft batteries, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Kiev’s main defense since last November is the Nasams surface-to-air missile system, manufactured by the United States and Norway. Washington last October committed to supplying Ukraine with eight Nasams batteries, two of which are already operational.
All drones that arrived in the capital at dawn were canceled, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Not so with the dozen Kalibr long-range missiles fired from Russian territory and the Black Sea on Saturday afternoon. Three of them hit civilian targets, killing one man and injuring about twenty others, including a Japanese journalist from the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
A Russian Shahed drone bomb shot down over Kyiv with the inscription “Boom, Happy New Year.” Andrii Nebitov
EL PAÍS visited a downtown hotel that was partially destroyed by a kalibr. The building, which stood empty, borders the Ukrainian National Palace of Arts, one of the city’s main venues for concerts and plays. The palace was also damaged, as was a school on the same block. This newspaper could not identify a military target nearby, although authorities prevented photographing a factory in front of the hotel, the possible Russian target. Officials of the Ukrainian War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office appeared at the hotel.
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In the afternoon of the 31st, the provinces of Kherson, Zaporizhia and Mykolaiv were also attacked. Three children were injured in the first two. Sunday’s Russian bombings were particularly bloody in Kherson, where the southern front of the war is located, and in the province of Sumi, near the border with Russia.
A member of the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office is investigating the war crimes committed by Russia Cristian Segura in Kyiv on Saturday
Putin justified the invasion in his speech by defending Russian sovereignty against a “neo-Nazi” government in Ukraine. Russian propaganda has been claiming that Ukrainian elites are fascists since 2014, when pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in the Maidan revolt. “Today we fight to protect our people and our historical territories in the new regions of the Russian Federation,” Putin said. “Together we build and create.” The Russian president was referring to the unilaterally annexed Ukrainian provinces: Crimea, 2014, and 2022, parts of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Lugansk.
The bombings contrasted with Putin’s positive words, with which he congratulated the Russians on the New Year: “Our country has always celebrated the beginning of the New Year, even in difficult times. It has always been everyone’s favorite holiday and has a magical power to bring out the best in people, highlighting the importance of traditional family values, the energy of goodwill, generosity and trust.”
In his New Year’s speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that his country would not be intimidated but would fight until it liberated all Russian-occupied territories. “This is the year [2022] where Ukraine changed the world. And the world discovered Ukraine. They told us to give up. We decide to counterattack. They told us that we had to make concessions and compromises. We will join the European Union and NATO.”
Prominent European politicians used the turn of the year to emphasize their support for Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron said his country would support Kyiv “until victory”. “At the end of the year, Putin is trying again to plunge Ukraine into darkness with heinous acts,” wrote the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, “we are ready to help Ukraine again in 2023.” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola released a video message alongside the EU and Ukraine flags to ensure community support continues.
The Russian attacks did not surprise Ukrainians, who had already been warned by their government that the Kremlin would use this data to demonstrate its power. But these forecasts stand in contrast to reports from Kyiv and the intelligence services of NATO member states such as the United Kingdom and the United States, repeated since last summer, that Russia’s arsenal of Russian cruise missiles has been reduced to a minimum. The massive deployment of Shahed drones, provided by Iran and much cheaper to produce, would respond to the lack of long-range missiles. Offensives such as those launched at the end of the year and, above all, the campaign against the power grid that began last October contradict these assessments. Despite this, the deputy head of intelligence at Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, Vadim Skibitski, dared this Sunday on state news that Russia only has marching weapons — Kalibr, Kh-101 and Kh-555 missiles — for two or three major strikes. Skibitski admitted that the production of these missiles is continuing in Russia, albeit in smaller quantities, and that he can confirm this because over the past few days they have recovered remains of missiles manufactured in the last quarter of 2022.
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