Ukraine said on Monday it had shot down all Russian drones in a new wave of attacks after Moscow launched an unprecedented third straight day of airstrikes against civilian targets.
Meanwhile, Russian officials were alarmed by reports that a large number of Russian soldiers were killed in a strike on a dormitory where they were housed in occupied Ukraine, along with an ammunition depot. Kyiv and Russian nationalist bloggers said hundreds of Russian soldiers had died. Officials appointed by Russia spoke of heavy casualties without giving a number.
Russia ushered in the new year with nighttime attacks on Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, hundreds of kilometers from the front line. It marked a change in tactics after months in which Moscow typically spaced such strikes about a week apart.
After launching dozens of missiles on December 31, Russia launched dozens of Iranian Shahed drones on January 1 and 2. But Kyiv said on Monday it had shot down all 39 drones in the latest wave, including 22 shot down over the capital.
Elderly couples take part in a traditional dance gathering in an underground mall on New Year’s Day in Kyiv. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said the latest strikes had cut off some electricity and heating.
“There are emergency power outages in the city,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.
Earlier, he said one person was injured by debris from a destroyed drone that hit a road and damaged a building in a northeastern district of the capital.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the information.
Kyiv said the new tactic was a sign of Russia’s desperation as Ukraine’s ability to defend its airspace had improved.
Russia has been trying to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for months but failed because Ukraine got better defenses, presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.
“Now they are looking for routes and attempts to hit us in some way, but their terror tactics will not work. Our sky will become a shield.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Ukrainians for showing gratitude to the troops and to each other, and said Russia’s efforts would prove futile.
“Drones and missiles and everything else won’t help them,” he said of the Russians. “Because we are united. They are only united by fear.”
Ukraine’s air defense systems worked through the night to shoot down incoming drones and warn communities of the approaching danger.
“It’s noisy in the region and in the capital: nighttime drone attacks,” said Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba.
“Air Defense Works”
“The Russians launched several waves of Shahed drones. Targeted at critical infrastructure sites. Air defense is working,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia, which has seized and claims to have annexed about a fifth of Ukraine, has moved toward massive airstrikes against Ukrainian cities after suffering battlefield defeats in the second half of 2022.
He says his attacks, which have cut heating and electricity to millions over the winter, are aimed at reducing Kyiv’s ability to fight back. Ukraine says the attacks have no military purpose and aim to injure civilians, which is a war crime.
“Massive blow” in Makeevka
Russian nationalist war bloggers seethed with anger on Monday after reports of mass casualties among soldiers housed in a dormitory with ammunition at a former vocational school in Makeevka, a sister city to the regional capital Donetsk in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. Unverified footage posted online shows a huge building reduced to smoking rubble.
Daniil Bezsonov, a senior Russian official in the Moscow-controlled parts of Donetsk region, said the building was hit by US-made missiles shortly after midnight on New Year’s Eve. According to preliminary reports, it was being used as staff housing, he said.
Ukrainian soldier Pavlo Prizhekhodsky, 27, sings a song he wrote for the front line as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on December 31, 2022. (Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)
“There are dead and wounded, the exact number is not yet known,” Bezsonov said on the Telegram messaging app. “The building itself is badly damaged.
Russian state news agency TASS reported that at least 15 people were injured. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said about 400 Russians were killed there “as a result of ‘negligent handling of heating appliances.’
Igor Girkin, a former commander of pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine who has become one of Russia’s most prominent nationalist war bloggers, also said the death toll was in the hundreds. Ammunition was stored in the building, which detonated when the barracks were hit.
The war blogger intervenes
“What happened in Makeevka is terrible,” wrote Archangel Spetznaz Z, another Russian military blogger with more than 700,000 followers on Telegram.
“Who thought of massing personnel in a building where even a fool knows that even if they hit with artillery, there will be many wounded or killed?”
A source close to the Russian-appointed leadership in Donetsk told Reuters that casualty reports were exaggerated and the death toll appeared to be less than 100.
Ukrainian troops welcomed the New Year on the front line in eastern Donetsk province. One soldier, 27-year-old Pavlo Prizehodski, plays a song he wrote on the guitar after 12 of his comrades were killed in one night.
Ukrainian soldiers watch Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s New Year’s address to the nation at a military rest home in Donetsk on December 31, 2022. (Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)
“It is sad that instead of meeting friends, celebrating and giving each other gifts, people were forced to seek shelter, some were killed” during the New Year holidays, he told Reuters.
“This is a huge tragedy that can never be forgiven.
In a nearby trench, soldier Oleg Zahrodsky, 49, said he volunteered after his son was called up as a reservist. Now his son is in hospital fighting for his life with a traumatic brain injury while his father is in charge.
“It’s very difficult now,” he said, holding back tears.
Russia has razed Ukrainian cities and killed thousands of civilians since Putin ordered his invasion last February, saying Ukraine was an artificial state whose pro-Western outlook threatened Russia’s security.
Ukraine hit back with Western military support, driving Russian forces out of more than half of the territory they seized. The front lines have been largely static in recent weeks, with thousands of soldiers dying in intense warfare.
In a stark New Year’s message filmed in front of a group of people dressed in military uniform, Putin vowed not to stop his war.
“The main thing is the fate of Russia,” Putin said. “The defense of the fatherland is our sacred duty to our ancestors and descendants. Moral, historical justice is on our side.”
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