Ukrainian authorities on Sunday announced four dead and 50 wounded in Russian attacks carried out just before and just after the New Year, which Moscow said targeted drone manufacturing facilities.
According to the latest report by local and regional authorities, these attacks were particularly aimed at the capital Kyiv and seven other Ukrainian regions.
AFP journalists present in Kyiv had heard a dozen explosions early Saturday afternoon and a few more a few tens of minutes after the New Year: in central Kyiv, a rocket ripped open the facade of a hotel in particular.
The Ukrainian Air Force also said it shot down 45 Iranian-made Shahed explosive drones fired by Russia during the night. She did not say whether drones had hit their targets.
Kyiv Police Chief Andriï Nebitov posted a photo on Facebook of what appears to be the remains of a drone with the words “Happy New Year” in Russian.
“That’s all you need to know about the terror state and its military,” he wrote.
“Won’t Forgive”
The Russian military, meanwhile, claimed on Saturday to have “carried out a wide-ranging precision airstrike on Ukrainian defense industry facilities involved in the manufacture of attack drones used to carry out terrorist attacks against Russia.”
“The plans of the Kiev regime to carry out terrorist attacks against Russia in the near future have been foiled,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily report.
Moscow often classifies the Ukrainian army’s operations on Russian territory or at its facilities in Ukraine as “acts of terrorism”.
The Russian army has also announced that it will continue its offensive in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, where most of the fighting is currently concentrated.
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba, accused Russia of targeting residential areas on Saturday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded by assuring that his country would “not forgive” Moscow.
According to the detailed figures of the Russian New Year strikes, three people died in the city of Khmelnytsky in the west of the country, including a 22-year-old young woman. Among the 50 injured are a 13-year-old boy and his 12-year-old sister in a village near Kherson in the south, according to the presidency.
“Weaken Russia”
According to regional authorities, one person was killed and three others injured in a Russian attack in Orikhiv in the southern Zaporizhia region on Sunday.
On the pro-Russian side, authorities in separatist areas in eastern Ukraine reported the death of a civilian in Ukrainian shelling on Sunday in Yasynovata, Donetsk region.
According to them, shortly after midnight, the Ukrainian army also attacked Donetsk and the neighboring town of Makiivka, injuring at least 15 people.
In a New Year’s greeting to Ukrainians, Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion that began in February and said his country will fight until “victory” and the return of all Russian-held territories.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared alongside soldiers fighting in Ukraine to give his New Year’s greetings. He asserted that “moral and historical correctness” is on his country’s side in this war and accused the West of “cynically using Ukraine and its people to weaken and divide Russia”.
Moscow, which in September claimed annexation of four Ukrainian regions it at least partially controls, has faced backlash on the ground in recent months, notably having to pull out of the Kharkiv region in the northeast and the city of Kherson in the south.
In response to these defeats and Ukrainian attacks on civilian and military installations in Russia and on the annexed Crimea, the Russian army decided on a tactic of bombing Ukraine’s infrastructure from October, which regularly led to massive power and water cuts.