FRONT LINE OF KYIV/DONETSK PROVINCE: On Monday, waves of Russian drones targeted infrastructure in Ukraine’s capital and surrounding areas, damaging energy facilities and causing some power outages, according to officials, as Russia extended its bombardment into the second day of 2023.
Ukraine’s air force said that its air defense systems destroyed all of Russia’s 39 Iranian-made Shahed drones that targeted Ukraine overnight in what it said was a “massive attack”.
President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Ukrainians for their gratitude to the troops and to one another, saying Russia’s efforts would be futile.
“Drones, missiles, and everything else aren’t going to help them,” he said of the Russians. “Because we stand together. They are only united by fear.”
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled no relent in his assault on Ukraine in a stern New Year’s speech.
Ukraine’s air defense systems worked all night to shoot down incoming drones and warn communities of the impending threat.
“Night drone attacks are audible in the region and in the capital,” Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said.
“Russia launched multiple waves of Shahed drones. Critical infrastructure facilities are being targeted. “Air defense is in action,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The strikes, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, have knocked out some power and heating.
“There are emergency power outages in the city,” he said via Telegram.
Earlier, he said that debris from a destroyed drone hit a road and damaged a building in the capital’s northeastern district, injuring one person.
The information could not be independently verified by Reuters.
By the early hours of Monday, air defense systems in Ukraine’s east had destroyed nine Iranian-made drones over the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
NEW YEAR IN THE WORKS
“Russia coldly and cowardly attacked Ukraine in the early hours of the New Year,” said US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink on Twitter. However, Putin does not appear to understand that Ukrainians are made of iron.”
On the front lines in Ukraine’s eastern province of Donetsk, troops toasted the New Year. After 12 of his comrades were killed in a single night, one soldier, Pavlo Pryzhehodskiy, 27, played a song he had written on a guitar.
“It’s unfortunate that instead of gathering with friends, celebrating, and exchanging gifts, people were forced to seek shelter, and some were killed,” he told Reuters.
“It is a huge tragedy that can never be forgiven. That is why the New Year is so depressing.”
Soldier Oleh Zahrodskiy, 49, said he volunteered in a nearby trench after his son was called up as a reservist. His son is now in the hospital, fighting for his life due to a brain injury, while his father stands guard.
“It’s very difficult right now,” he said, holding back tears.
‘MERRY CHRISTMAS!’
Andrii Nebytov, Kyiv’s police chief, posted a photo on the Telegram app of what was described as a piece of a drone used in an attack on the capital, with a handwritten sign in Russian reading “Happy New Year.”
“This wreckage is not at the front, where fierce battles are raging; it is here, on a sports field, where children play,” Nebytov explained.
Since Putin ordered his invasion in February, Russia has flattened Ukrainian cities and killed thousands of civilians, claiming Ukraine was an artificial state whose pro-Western outlook threatened Russia’s security.
Russia, which denies targeting civilians, has since claimed annexed approximately one-fifth of Ukraine.
With Western military assistance, Ukraine has fought back, driving Russian forces from more than half of the territory they seized. The front lines have been mostly static in recent weeks, with thousands of soldiers dying in intense combat.
Russia claims its aerial strikes are intended to reduce Ukraine’s fighting capability; Kiev claims they have no military purpose and are intended to harm civilians, which is a war crime.
“The main thing is Russia’s fate,” Putin said in a New Year’s Eve speech to a group dressed in military uniform, rather than the usual backdrop of the Kremlin walls.
“Defense of the fatherland is our sacred duty to our forefathers and descendants. “We have moral and historical righteousness on our side.”
A Ukrainian drone attack damaged a power plant in Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, its governor said on Monday, adding that no one was injured.
Russia said last week that it shot down a Ukrainian drone near one of its long-range bomber bases deep inside its territory, killing three air force personnel.
Source: Reuters
