Ukraine’s capital kyiv faces new Russian airstrike

Russian bombings in the hours before and after the turn of the year left at least four dead and fifty wounded in Ukraineaccording to the Ukrainian military, which said it shot down Iranian-made explosive drones involved in the attacks.

The bombings occurred in Kiev and in seven other regions of Ukraine, according to local and regional authorities.

Three people were killed, including a 22-year-old girl, in the western city of Khmelnitsky, and a fourth was killed after a Russian shelling in the southern Zaporizhia region, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Among the injured are two teenagers, ages 13 and 12, who live in a village near the southern city of Khersonrecaptured by Ukrainian troops in November.

In the center of kyiv, a missile hit the facade of a hotel.

Police chief Andrii Nebitov posted on Facebook an image of the wreckage of a drone that read the words “Happy New Year” in Russian.

“This is all you need to know about the terrorist state and its military,” he wrote.

The Ukrainian army announced that it had shot down 45 Iranian-made drones last morning, although it did not specify whether these robots used as projectiles hit their targets.

Ukraine “will not give anything” to Russia

In the early hours of Monday, kyiv suffered a new air attack and the city was placed on alert, the capital’s military administration reported on Telegram.

“Stay in shelters,” implored Sergei Popko, head of kyiv’s military administration, who announced that “the air alert is active in the capital.”

Mayor Vitali KlitschkoFor his part, he reported an explosion in the northeastern district of Desnyanskyi and assured that “all emergency services are on their way.”

It said a 19-year-old was hospitalized with injuries after the attack early Monday morning.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, “the enemy carried out 35 airstrikes, using in particular the “Shahed-136″ drone,” and all the missiles fired by Russia were destroyed, the General Staff of the Ukrainian army announced.

“The Russian occupiers (…) fired 16 times with multiple rocket launchers, in particular against the children’s hospital in Kherson”, a southern city that has been regularly bombarded since it was recaptured by kyiv troops in the autumn.

The Russians “are losing, the drones, the missiles and everything else will not help them, because we are together,” the president reacted on Sunday night Volodymyr Zelensky.

“And they will not take a single year from Ukraine, they will not take away our independence. We will not give them anything. We respond to every Russian attack (…) in all our cities and communities,” he insisted.

The Russian Defense Ministry had indicated that on Saturday it attacked “Ukrainian defense facilities involved in the manufacture of offensive drones.”

“We managed to dismantle the plans of the kyiv regime to organize terrorist attacks against Russia in the near future,” he said.

Shelling in Donetsk

The Russian army reported, for its part, that it continues its offensive in the region of Donetskin eastern Ukraine and annexed by Russia in September, where most of the fighting is currently concentrated.

The Ukrainian General Staff stressed in this regard on Sunday night that “the enemy (…) continued to attempt attacks in the Bakhmut sector”, a city in the region that the Russians have been seeking to seize for more than six months.

The soldiers engaged in the battle of Bakhmut are subjected to “incredible moral and physical fatigue,” Mark Kupchenenko, a young military chaplain who visits the front every day to support the troops, told AFP. Some have “panic attacks, their hands are shaking, they can’t rest,” he said.

Zelensky praised the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion in his end-of-year message and said that his country will fight until “victory” until it recovers all the territories occupied or annexed by Russia.

On the pro-Russian side, the authorities of separatist territories in eastern Ukraine reported a civilian killed by Ukrainian shelling against the town of Yasinuvata, in the Donetsk region.

They also denounced bombardments by the kyiv army against the city of Donetsk and the neighboring town of Makiivka, which caused at least 15 injuries.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putinclaimed that “moral and historical” justice is on the side of his country in this war and accused the West of “cynically using Ukraine and its people to weaken and divide Russia.”