COURTESY AP VIDEO
Ukrainian officials said the country’s two largest cities had been hit by Russian ballistic missile strikes, killing five more people and wounding more than 100.
EVGENIY MALOLETKA / AP
A firefighter works to extinguish a fire of a gas pipe line damaged by a Russian rocket attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 2.
EFREM LUKATSKY/AP
Rescuers work at a site of a destroyed apartment building after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 2.
KYIV, Ukraine >> Ukraine’s two largest cities were attacked early Tuesday with Russian missiles that killed five more people and wounded as many as 130, officials said, as the war neared its two-year mark and the Kremlin intensified its winter bombardment of urban areas. . Areas.
Air defenses shot down all 10 Russian Kinzhal missiles, capable of flying at 10 times the speed of sound, out of a hundred other types launched, said Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief.
But other missiles passed through Kyiv and Kharkiv, the provincial capital of the northeastern region. In and around Kyiv, another 4 people were killed and about 70 injured, while in the Kharkiv region, one user was killed and 60 others were injured. the Interior Ministry said.
The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal is an air-launched ballistic missile that is rarely used by Russian forces due to its limited payload and stockpiles. The number of volleys fired Tuesday is the highest number used in an attack since the start of the war, the Ukrainian Air Force said. spokesman Yurii Ihnat said.
The latest round of Russian attacks began Friday with the biggest attack on Ukraine of the war, when fighting along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line turned into brutal attrition in the middle of winter. At least 41 civilians have been killed since the weekend.
In a nine-story building in Kyiv where two other people were killed, Inna Luhina, 48, was about to go to the painting when an explosion shattered her windows and she and other relatives, including her 80-year-old mother, were beaten stealing glass.
More than one hundred survivors gathered in a school set up as a transitional shelter.
Iryna Dzyhil, a 55-year-old resident of the same building, said the explosion knocked her and her husband out of their chair, and a fire trapped them in the most sensitive terrain until emergency crews rescued them from the roof.
“They say they are attacking army targets, but they are attacking people, killing our young people and our loved ones,” Dzyhil said of the Russians.
Russia fired about 100 types of missiles in the attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X, formerly Twitter. He claimed that at least 70 planes had been shot down, almost all of them in the Kyiv region, noting that Western-supplied air defense systems, such as Patriots and NASAMS, had stockpiled many lives.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had launched missile and drone strikes on military industrial facilities in and around Kyiv. Depots storing missiles and munitions supplied by the West also were targeted, it said.
“The goal of the strike has been achieved, all the goals have been achieved,” he explained.
It was not conceivable to independently determine the claims of both parties.
In his nightly address, Zelenskyy said that since Dec. 29, Russia has used almost 300 missiles and more than 200 Shahed drones against Ukraine.
The attacks created a desolate morning scene in Kyiv, with most cafes and restaurants remaining closed. Many others opted to stay home or seek shelter as loud explosions rocked the city early in the morning. Air raid sirens sounded for about four hours, and the city’s subway stations, which serve as shelters, were crowded.
After the air force issued warnings about incoming missiles, people wearing pajamas underneath their coats took sleeping bags, mats and their pets to subway stations while loud explosions echoed above. At one of the central stations, called Golden Gates, hundreds of people filled the spacious underground areas while trains continued to run.
“Perhaps today was the most frightening because there were so many explosions,” said resident Myroslava Shcherba.
On Saturday, a shelling of the city of Belgorod on the Russian border killed more than two dozen people. Russia blamed the attack on Ukraine and has retaliated on several occasions since.
The Belgorod attack was one of the deadliest on Russian soil since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started more than 22 months ago. Russian officials said the death toll reached 26, including five children, after a new salvo of rockets Tuesday.
Air defense systems near Belgorod shot down 4 missiles fired from a Ukrainian Vilkha rocket launcher on Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said. In the last 24 hours, Ukraine has carried out at least 50 attacks, adding shelling and explosives introduced through drones, regional attacks. “One user was killed and 11 others were wounded during the shelling,” Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
The repeated attacks on Belgorod have also prompted the city government to temporarily close some of its cinemas and grocery malls. Announcing the closures on Telegram on Tuesday night, Mayor Valentin Demidov said “everyone stay at home as much as possible” for the sake of the attacks.
Shortly after Demidov’s announcement, Russian media once reported loud explosions heard in Belgorod. Gladkov and the Russian Defense Ministry said missiles introduced through Ukraine were shot down in the region. No casualties were reported.
Cities in western Russia have regularly come under drone attacks since May, although Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for strikes on Russian territory or the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
“They to intimidate us and create uncertainty in our country. We will accentuate the strikes. No simple crime against our civilian population will go unpunished,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday, calling the Belpassrod dam a “terrorist act. “
He accused Western nations of using Ukraine to try to “put Russia in its place.” While vowing retribution, he insisted Moscow would only target military infrastructure in Ukraine, but officials in Kyiv report civilian casualties from daily attacks on apartment buildings, shopping centers and residential areas.
Separately, the Russian Defense Ministry said one of its fighter jets accidentally dropped ammunition on the village of Petropavlovka in Russia’s southwestern Voronezh region on Tuesday, damaging six houses but causing no injuries. He said the cause of the crash would be investigated, but did not specify what kind of weapon the fighter jet had launched.
In April, munitions accidentally released by a Russian warplane caused a powerful blast in Belgorod, damaging several cars and slightly injuring two people.
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