Russia yesterday launched fresh strikes against Ukraine, a day after vowing to retaliate for what it called a “terrorist attack” on the city of Belgorod.
Kyiv yesterday said it had destroyed 21 of 49 Iranian-made Shahed drones fired by Russia overnight, adding that six guided missiles had also targeted the northeastern city of Kharkiv, as the two sides take turns accusing each other of pummeling civilian areas of their shared frontier over the weekend.
“As a result of the night attack of Russian drones on Kharkiv, buildings in the city center were damaged. These are not military facilities, but cafes, residential buildings and offices,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram, without mentioning casualties. “On the eve of the New Year, Russians want to intimidate our city, but we are not scared.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Ukrainian air force said in a statement on Telegram that the overnight drones were particularly targeted at “the front line of defense, as well as at civilian, military and infrastructure facilities in the frontline territories.”
It did not say whether the six missiles had hit their targets.
Kharkiv Governor Oleg Sinegubov said that 28 civilians were wounded in the attack on the city, including two teenagers and a foreign citizen.
The strike follows the deadliest attack on civilians in Russia since the start of the conflict in February 2022.
Twenty-four people, including three children, were killed and 108 people were wounded on Saturday in Belgorod, a Russian city 30km from the border that has been repeatedly struck by what Moscow says is indiscriminate shelling.
Moscow said that Saturday’s attack included the use of controversial cluster munitions, and told an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council that Kyiv had targeted a sports center, an ice rink and a university.
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya called it a “deliberate, indiscriminate attack against a civilian target”.
Ukraine’s allies countered that responsibility ultimately lay with Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading the neighboring country.
“If Russia wants someone to blame for the deaths of Russians in this war, it should start with President Putin,” British Deputy Political Coordinator at the UN Thomas Phipps said.
In Belgorod, footage posted online showed a street strewn with debris and smoke billowing from burned-out cars in the city’s center. Agence France-Presse was unable to immediately verify the circumstances of the strike.
The attack came a day after Ukraine said a barrage of Russian missile strikes on several cities, including the capital, had killed at least 40 people.
Schools, a maternity hospital, shopping arcades and blocks of apartments were among the buildings hit in Friday’s barrage, one of the most violent attacks since the start of the war.
Ukraine was still sifting through the rubble on Saturday when fresh strikes hit the regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Chernigiv, local authorities said.
Additional reporting by AP
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