Heavy attacks on Kyiv also on New Year's Eve - Zelenskyj wants to build the strongest air defense in Europe
Created: 01/01/2023 06:17
By: Markus Hofstetter
The British Ministry of Defense expects new Russian attack waves in the coming days.
The goal is to undermine the morale of Ukrainians.
The news ticker.
Rocket attack
just before
New Year
: dead and injured after explosions on Saturday
President Selenskyj
: Ukraine's air defenses are to be expanded to become the strongest in Europe
Escape
from
military service
: 15 Ukrainians die in illegal border crossing
This
news ticker on military developments
in the
Ukraine war
is constantly updated.
Update from December 31, 10:41 p.m .:
Shortly before the turn of the year, the arrival of so-called kamikaze drones from Russia was reported in Ukraine.
Air alerts were raised for the cities of Odessa and Mykolaiv in the south and Dnipro in the center of the country, the Unian
agency reported
on Saturday evening.
Mykolayiv military administrator Vitali Kim reported two formations of drones sighted in his area.
The air defense opened fire on the Iranian-made Shahed drones.
Update from December 31, 5:50 p.m .:
Ukrainian artillery attacked Russian positions in eastern Ukraine on Saturday.
The village of Pervomaiskoye in the Luhansk region of Donbass has been the target of at least two rounds of fire from the American Himars multiple rocket launcher, the Russian agency TASS reported
,
citing local authorities.
No information was given about possible casualties or damage.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian media reported explosions near Dzhankoy Airport in Russian-occupied Crimea.
They cited reports from social networks that the denotations in Crimea could be due to the use of anti-aircraft missiles.
Dead and injured after rocket attacks on Ukraine just before the New Year
Update from December 31, 4:17 p.m .:
According to the authorities, there were several injuries and deaths in the renewed rocket attacks shortly before the New Year.
As Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced on Saturday, an elderly man died in the capital and 16 people were injured.
One of the injured is a journalist from Japan.
One person killed in the attacks was also reported from the Zaporizhia region.
Two people were said to have been injured in the attacks.
In addition, important buildings in Kyiv were damaged by the explosions, including the Palace of Culture “Palace Ukraine”.
This was announced by the Vice President of the Office of the President, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, via the Telegram news service and published a photo.
“Usually on these days parents and children are there on the eve of the new year.
Today, miraculously, there were no children.
Glass flew from Russian rockets,” Tymoshenko said.
In addition to the Palace of Culture, a hotel in Kyiv, which is also used by journalists, was also partially damaged.
The rockets on Saturday were "an attack by murderers and terrorists," Tymoshenko said.
It makes the Russians "joy at the holiday table" to see a "destroyed hotel in the heart of Kiev".
Ukraine War: Heavy attacks on Kyiv also on New Year's Eve
December 31 update, 2:23 p.m
.: Shortly before the New Year celebrations, Russia again attacked Ukraine with dozens of cruise missiles and missiles.
Around half a dozen explosions – presumably triggered by anti-aircraft defense – could be heard in Kyiv on Saturday, as a reporter from the German Press Agency reported from the center of the capital.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko spoke of destruction.
Emergency services and medical staff are on their way.
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Explosions were also reported from the western Ukrainian regions of Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr and from the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolayiv.
According to the deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the western Ukrainian region of Khmelnytskyi was attacked with drones.
There were two injuries there.
As a precaution, power has been shut off in several areas to reduce damage from power supply hits.
Police officers stand in front of a hotel in Kyiv that was damaged by shelling.
(Photo from December 31, 2022) © Efrem Lukatsky/dpa/picture alliance
President Zelenskyj: Ukraine's air defenses are to be expanded to become the strongest in Europe
First report from December 31: Kiev
- The British Ministry of Defense suspects a long-term strategy behind the regular attacks on the Ukrainian infrastructure.
"Since October, Russia has maintained the general pattern of conducting an intensive wave of attacks every seven to 10 days," the ministry's Twitter page said.
Russia almost certainly wants to use it to overwhelm Ukraine's air defenses.
But there is a realistic possibility that Russia will break this pattern and strike again in the coming days to undermine Ukrainian people's morale over the New Year holiday.
Meanwhile, Ukraine wants to massively expand its air defenses in response to repeated Russian rocket attacks on its cities.
"In the new year, Ukraine's air defense will be even stronger, even more effective," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily video address on Friday evening.
Ukraine's air defense could become the strongest in Europe, he added, referring to the announced Patriot battery from the United States.
"This will be a security guarantee not only for our country but for the entire continent."
Patriot systems from the USA, here a device stationed in Poland, are intended to help Ukraine fend off Russian attacks.
(Archive photo) © Christophe Gateau
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian armed forces' air defenses have achieved relatively high numbers of kills in large-scale Russian attacks with cruise missiles, rockets and so-called kamikaze drones.
Given the mass of incoming projectiles, not all missiles could be repelled.
The Ukrainian army, which already uses a number of foreign anti-aircraft systems, is awaiting deployment of the Patriot battery promised by the US government.
Ukrainian soldiers are currently being trained on the system.
Escape from military service: 15 Ukrainians die illegally crossing the border
According to the military, since the beginning of the Russian invasion and the declaration of a state of war in Ukraine, several thousand young Ukrainians have tried to evade military service.
As the Ukrainian border troops announced on Friday, almost 12,000 men were caught trying to illegally cross the country's border to the west.
15 men died while crossing the border.
Pictures of the Ukraine war: great horror and small moments of happiness
View photo gallery
In Russia, too, thousands of young men tried to evade military service.
Immediately after the partial mobilization in September, thousands fled abroad, and veritable small Russian colonies were established in some former Soviet republics.
