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Russia continued to attack Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine early on New Year’s Day, following a missile launch on Saturday, with air raid sirens wailing for hours overnight.
Ukraine’s Air Force Command said it had shot down 45 Iranian-made Shahed drones – 32 of them after midnight on Sunday and 13 on Saturday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in an aggressive New Year’s address signaled that the war, now in its 11th month, would continue, a speech that contrasted with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s message of gratitude and unity.
As sirens sounded for more than four hours in Kyiv, some people shouted from their balconies, “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” Reuters witnesses reported.
There were no casualties in Kyiv from the latest barrage
Curfews from 7pm to midnight remain in place across the country, making celebrations for the start of 2023 impossible in public spaces.
Fragments from the broken missile caused minimal damage in the center of the capital, and earlier reports indicated no injuries or casualties, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on social media.
Ukraine’s top command said in a report on Sunday that Russia had launched 31 missiles with 12 airstrikes across the country in the previous 24 hours.
US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said on Twitter: “Russia coldly and cowardly attacked Ukraine in the early hours of the new year. But Putin still does not seem to understand that Ukrainians are made of iron.”
Andrii Nebytov, Kyiv’s police chief, posted a photo on the Telegram messaging app, allegedly of a piece of the drone used in the attack in the capital with a handwritten sign in Russian saying “Happy New Year.”
“This wreckage is not at the front, where fierce battles took place; they are here, on the sports field, where children play,” said Nebytov.
‘Let’s be quiet today’
The attack on Saturday killed at least one person in Kyiv and wounded twelve. They follow a series of bombardments over the past several months, which Russia has mainly directed at Ukraine’s energy and water infrastructure.
The latest attacks have damaged infrastructure in Sumy, in the north-east of the country, Khmelnytskyi in the west and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south-east and south, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.
“Let the day be quiet,” said Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk region on Sunday, after reporting heavy attacks on several communities in the region overnight, injuring.
Separately, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the southern Russian region of Belgorod bordering Ukraine, said overnight shelling in the suburb of Shebekino had damaged houses but there were no casualties.
Russian media also reported a series of Ukrainian attacks in the Moscow-controlled regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, with local officials saying at least nine people were wounded.
Russia’s state news agency RIA reported, citing a local doctor, that six people were killed when a hospital in Donetsk was attacked on Saturday.
There was no immediate response from Kyiv, which has almost never claimed public responsibility for attacks in Russia or in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine.
Reuters could not independently verify Russian media reports.
Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, calling it a “special operation” to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine, which he says is a threat to Russia. Kyiv and its Western allies say Putin’s invasion is just an imperialist land grab.
Russian forces have been engaged in fierce fighting in eastern and southern Ukraine for months, trying to defend lands Moscow proclaimed in September and which make up the wider Donbas industrial region.
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