Russia covers Ukraine with record number of kamikaze drones
On New Year's Eve, the Ukrainian air defenses are running at full speed: they almost completely shoot down the strongest wave of drone attacks that Russia has launched since the start of the war, according to Kiev. Nevertheless, there are deaths and injuries.
According to Kiev, Russia fired a record number of 90 combat drones at Ukraine on New Year's Eve. The Ukrainian air force chief Mykola Oleshchuk announced on Telegram in the morning that 87 of these could have been repelled across the country. That is almost twice as many unmanned aerial vehicles as on New Year's Eve a year ago, when a total of 45 were shot down.
According to military governor Oleh Kiper, at least one person was killed and three others injured in an attack on a residential area in the Black Sea region of Odessa in the south. There was also reportedly damage to the port.
In Lviv in western Ukraine, a museum is said to have been destroyed. According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia also fired four S-300 surface-to-air missiles at the north-eastern region of Kharkiv. The southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia were also attacked with four anti-radar missiles. According to the regional head of administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, a woman was killed in Kherson.
Putin announces further attacks
It is already the second turn of the year that the whole of Ukraine has experienced war after Russia invaded the neighboring country on February 24, 2022. Fighting between Kiev and Moscow has intensified in recent days. On Friday, Ukraine was hit by one of the heaviest waves of Russian attacks since the start of the war, in which 39 people were killed according to Ukrainian reports. New Year's Day was declared a day of mourning in Kiev to commemorate the 19 people who were killed in the capital alone on Friday.
Meanwhile, a total of 24 people were killed in a Ukrainian attack on the Russian border region of Belgorod on Saturday. Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin therefore announced further attacks against the neighboring country. "Surely you have noticed that literally the next day such attacks were carried out," he said during a visit to a Moscow military hospital. "And today, as far as I know, some are being carried out and we will do so tomorrow as well." In his first reaction to the shelling of Belgorod last Saturday, Putin also spoke of an "act of terrorism" by the Ukrainian army.
The background to the shelling of Belgorod remains unclear. There was no official reaction from Kiev. Some Ukrainian media, citing intelligence sources, wrote that the Russian air defense may not have worked accurately. There were also numerous complaints from Belgorod citizens that bomb shelters had been locked during the attack and were therefore inaccessible.
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In response to the sustained attacks on Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urgently called on global leaders to impose stronger sanctions against Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, during his New Year's address. Amidst these escalating conflicts, the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine came under attack by Russian forces, resulting in civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure.
Source: www.ntv.de
