Russia marked the new year with the launch of a record 90 Shahed-type drones over Ukraine, as Vladimir Putin vowed to further intensify attacks after a Ukrainian strike on the south Russian city of Belgorod.
Ukraine claimed to have intercepted 87 of the drones, but a 15-year-old boy was killed and seven people wounded by falling debris from one of the downed aircraft in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, according to the head of the region’s military administration, Oleh Kiper. Debris also caused a number of small fires, including at the city’s port.
In the western city of Lviv, Russian attacks severely damaged a museum dedicated to Roman Shukhevych, a Ukrainian nationalist and military commander who fought for Ukrainian independence during the second world war. University buildings in the town of Dubliany were also damaged, although no casualties were reported.
Writing on social media, the Lviv mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, described the strike as “symbolic and cynical”, adding “this is a war for our history”.
In a New Year’s Day visit to a military hospital, Putin vowed to step up the assaults on Ukraine nearly two years after he launched the full-scale invasion, which Russian military leaders anticipated would take their forces just a few days. In conversations with Russian soldiers reported by press agencies, he denounced a Ukrainian attack on Belgorod near the Ukrainian border.
Belgorod authorities said the death toll from Saturday’s attack had reached 25, including five children.
“They want to intimidate us and create uncertainty within our country,” Putin said. “We will intensify strikes. Not a single crime against our civilian population will go unpunished.”
The BBC quoted a Ukrainian security source as saying that Saturday’s drone attack had been directed at civilian targets and that the civilian casualties were caused by falling fragments of Ukrainian drones downed by Russian air defence. The Belgorod attack followed an 18-hour series of Russian airstrikes which began on Friday, which killed 49 people, and which Ukrainian officials described as the biggest aerial barrage of the war.
In his remarks to Russian soldiers, Putin said he believed Russia held the “strategic initiative” in the war.
“In any case, that is how I am being briefed,” the Russian president said. He added Moscow wanted to end the conflict, which the UN estimates has killed more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians since February 2022, “as quickly as possible” but “only on our terms”.
Meanwhile, four people were killed and 13 more wounded after Ukrainian shelling on Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk, according to the area’s Russian-installed leader, Denis Pushilin. Russian state media reported that a journalist was among the victims, but provided no further details.
One person was also killed and another wounded in shelling on the Russian border town of Shebekino, the regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
