Russia starts year with furious missile blitz against Ukraine

Russia ushered in the new year with yet another missile and drone blitz against Ukraine on Tuesday, striking the capital, Kyiv, and the Kharkiv region, killing at least two people and injuring scores of civilians.

At least one person was killed and 27 people were hospitalized in Kyiv, mayor Vitali Klitschko said, while in the Kharkiv region, one person was killed and 41 were injured, said governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Moscow has ramped up its attacks on Ukraine in recent days. On December 29, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces launched what’s been described as the largest aerial attack of the Ukraine war. At least 30 civilians were killed in that attack and 144 others were wounded. Ukrainian officials said a maternity hospital, schools and residential apartments were targeted in the strikes.

“One victim from a house in the Solomyan district, an elderly woman, died in an ambulance. 27 victims have been hospitalized,” Klitschko said on his Telegram channel on Tuesday.

Videos and photos circulating on social media show the destruction caused by the overnight missile blitz. Syniehubov shared images on Telegram of charred cars and damaged residential homes. Other clips show apartment buildings on fire.

“It’s very dangerous to be outside a shelter right now,” Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Defense Ministry via email for comment. The Kremlin hasn’t commented on the strikes.

Tuesday’s strikes came a day after Putin vowed to retaliate against strikes on the Russian border city of Belgorod on Saturday—attacks Ukraine hasn’t claimed responsibility for. Kyiv rarely comments on strikes that occur on Russian soil.

Russian news outlet Kommersant, citing a source in Russia’s Investigative Committee, reported that the attack was carried out using multiple launch rocket systems from the Kharkiv region.

The missile strikes that killed 20 people and wounded 111 “will not go unpunished,” Putin said during a meeting with military servicemen at a hospital in Moscow.

Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency said on Monday that Mikhail Konopitsyn, a 27-year-old Russian first lieutenant, was killed in Saturday’s attack in Belgorod.

Konopitsyn had been working for Belgorod’s military investigative department since November 2023 and previously served as an anti-tank-missile platoon commander in Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“They want to intimidate us and create uncertainty within our country. We will intensify strikes. Not a single crime against our civilian population will go unpunished,” Putin said on Monday, calling the Belgorod attacks a “terrorist act.”

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