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regular-article-logo Saturday, 16 November 2024

Missiles greet Kyiv on New Year’s Eve

Moscow’s second major missile attack in three days badly damaged a hotel south of Kyiv’s centre and a residential building in another district

Reuters Kyiv Published 01.01.23, 12:09 AM
Russia has been attacking vital infrastructure in Ukraine since October, causing power blackouts and other outages as the cold weather bites.

Russia has been attacking vital infrastructure in Ukraine since October, causing power blackouts and other outages as the cold weather bites. Representational picture

Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles at targets in Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least one person in the capital Kyiv and injuring more than a dozen in what one official described as “terror on New Year’s Eve”.

Moscow’s second major missile attack in three days badly damaged a hotel south of Kyiv’s centre and a residential building in another district.

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A Japanese journalist was among the wounded and taken to hospital, mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Russia has been attacking vital infrastructure in Ukraine since October, causing power blackouts and other outages as the cold weather bites.

“This time, Russia’s mass missile attack is deliberately targeting residential areas, not even our energy infrastructure,” foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

“War criminal Putin ‘celebrates’ New Year by killing people,” Kuleba said, calling for Russia to be deprived of its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said air defences shot down 12 incoming cruise missiles, including six around Kyiv, five in Zhytomyrskiy and one in Khmeltnytskiy.

The cruise missiles had been launched from Russian strategic bombers over the Caspian Sea, he said on Telegram. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets described the attack as “terror on New Year’s Eve”.

“The terrorist country is congratulating the Ukrainian people with missiles. But we are indestructible and unconquerable. There is no fear, but the fury is rising. We will definitely win,” Lubinets said.

Kyiv’s mayor said 30 per cent of consumers were without electricity in the capital due to the introduction of emergency blackouts, but residents had central heating and running water.

Other cities across Ukraine also came under fire. In the southern region of Mykolaiv, local governor Vitaliy Kim said on television that six people had been wounded.

In the western city of Khmelnytskyi, two people were wounded in a drone attack, Ukrainian presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko said.

The official also reported a strike in the southern industrial city of Zaporizhzhia, which Tymoshenko said had damaged residential buildings.

Ukraine’s defence ministry responded on Telegram by saying: “With each new missile attack on civilian infrastructure, more and more Ukrainians are convinced of the need to fight until the complete collapse of Putin’s regime.”

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