Russia to ‘intensify’ attacks on Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that Moscow will intensify strikes on military targets in Ukraine after an unprecedented attack over the weekend on the Russian city of Belgorod.

“We’re going to intensify the strikes, no crime against civilians will rest unpunished, that’s for certain,” Putin said during a visit to a military hospital, adding they would target “military installations”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian air defence forces had foiled a “record” number of Russian drones on the night of New Year’s Eve after a week of escalation in the nearly two-year conflict.

Kyiv also said Russian shelling killed one person on New Year’s Day in the southern Odesa region and another person in Kherson, also in the south.

The barrage came after Russia pounded Ukraine in the last days of 2023, killing 39 people in one of the biggest strikes in the war.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 90 Iranian-made Shahed drones on the last night of the year.

“On New Year’s Eve, the defenders of the sky managed to destroy a record number of enemy attack drones — 87 out of 90,” the air force said.

It said Moscow also launched missiles in the northeastern Kharkiv region, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.

Odesa was shelled on New Year’s Eve, Kyiv said, with emergency services reporting one person killed. A 73-year-old woman was killed in Kherson in shelling.

The drone attacks also targeted the western city of Lviv near the Polish border. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy said a university linked to a Ukrainian nationalist figure and a museum were damaged.

Russian-installed authorities said yesterday that Ukrainian shelling of the Moscow-held city of Donetsk on New Year’s Eve killed four people and wounded 13.

“As a result of Ukrainian shelling of central Donetsk on New Year’s Eve we can say that there are four dead and 13 wounded,” the Russian-installed head of Donetsk Denis Pushilin said in a video on Telegram, adding that Ukraine used cluster munitions.