Morality ‘is on our side’, Russia says as missiles rain down on Ukraine on New Year’s Eve, bringing more death and destruction
- Russia carried out another major round of missile attacks on Ukraine, which left at least one dead and several wounded, including a Japanese journalist
- Defence Minister said victory for Russia over Ukraine was ‘inevitable’, while Putin claimed ‘moral, historical rightness’ in New Year’s messages
Russia carried out its second major round of missile attacks on Ukraine in three days on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, with explosions reported throughout the country on New Year’s Eve.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least one person had been killed and eight wounded after a series of explosions in the capital. Correspondents reported hearing 10 loud blasts in the city.
The mayor said one of those wounded by the blasts was a Japanese journalist who had been taken to hospital.
A hotel just south of Kyiv’s city centre was hit and a residential building in another district was damaged, according to the city administration.
“The terrorist country launched several waves of missiles. They are wishing us a happy New Year. But we will persevere,” Oleksiy Kuleb, governor of the surrounding Kyiv region said.
Ukraine’s air defence later shot down 12 out of 20 missiles launched by Russia, hours before New Year’s Eve celebrations, the Ukrainian army said later in the day.
Russia “launched more than 20 cruise missiles … Our air defence destroyed 12 cruise missiles,” Ukraine’s commander-in-chief General Valeriy Zaluzhny said on social media, adding that six of them were shot down over the capital Kyiv.
Other locations across Ukraine that came under fire included the southern region of Mykolaiv, local governor Vitaliy Kim said on television that six people had been wounded.
In a separate post on Telegram, Kim said Russia had targeted civilians with the strikes, something Moscow has previously denied.
“According to today’s tendencies, the occupiers are striking not just critical … in many cities [they are targeting] simply residential areas, hotels, garages, roads.”
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 powerhouse city of Zaporizhzhia, which Timoshenko said had damaged residential buildings.
Ukraine’s defence ministry responded with a defiant message posted on Telegram.
“With each new missile attack on civilian infrastructure, more Ukrainians are convinced of the need to fight until the complete collapse of Putin’s regime,” it wrote.
In a New Year’s video message, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said victory for Russia over Ukraine was “inevitable” as he hailed Russian soldiers’ heroism.
Moscow’s defence chief, who has been heavily criticised by pro-war voices in Russia for battlefield failures during the 10-month campaign, said the situation on the front lines remained “difficult” and lambasted Ukraine and the West for trying to contain Russia.
“We meet the New Year in a difficult military-political situation”, Shoigu said. “At a time when there are those who are trying to erase our glorious history and great achievements, demolish monuments to the victors over fascism, put war criminals on a pedestal, cancel and desecrate everything Russian”.
With bloody fighting ongoing across the 1,000km (600 mile) frontline, and Russia not having secured any territorial gains since the first months of the war, Shoigu told Russian soldiers: “Victory, like the New Year, is inevitable.”
02:55
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday his country would never give in to the West’s attempts to use Ukraine as a tool to destroy Russia in a New Year’s video message broadcast on Russian state TV.
He said Russia was fighting in Ukraine to protect its “motherland”, and to secure “true independence” for its people, in a message filmed in front of Russian service personnel.
Putin said in remarks carried by news agencies that this year was marked by “truly pivotal, fateful events” which became “the frontier that lays the foundation for our common future, for our true independence”.
“Today we are fighting for this, protecting our people in our own historical territories, in the new constituent entities of the Russian Federation,” he added, referring to Ukrainian regions that Russia claimed to have annexed.
“Moral, historical rightness is on our side,” he said.
