Extract from ABC News
Russia pounded the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv with missiles and drones in the hours leading into New Year's Eve, Ukrainian officials said, hours after Moscow accused Kyiv of carrying out a deadly air assault just across the border on nearby Belgorod.
Key points:
- Russia blamed Ukraine for the attack that hit a residential area and public ice rink
- Ukraine has not commented on the strikes but rarely claims responsibility for attacks within Russian borders
- The shelling comes a day after an 18-hour aerial assault from Russia that killed at least 39 civilians across Ukraine
In the first waves of Russia's attacks, at least six missiles hit Kharkiv, Ukraine's National Police said on Sunday, injuring at least 28 people and hitting 12 apartment buildings, 13 residential houses and a kindergarten.
Earlier, Ukrainian officials said that among those injured in Kharkiv were two boys aged 14 and 16 and a security adviser for a team of German journalists.
Closer to midnight, as part of a wider bombardment of Ukraine that also targeted Kyiv, several waves of Russian drones hit residential buildings in Kharkiv's centre, spouting fires, the mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, said.
"On the eve of the New Year, the Russians want to intimidate our city, but we are not scared — we are unbreakable and invincible!" the mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said.
He posted several photos showing windows blown out of residential buildings and fire fighters putting out a fire at what seemed like a store.
Russian city of Belgorod shelled
The attacks came within hours after what Moscow said was an "indiscriminate" Ukrainian air attack on the city of Belgorod, near Kharkiv and just north of Ukraine's border, that killed at least 22 people, and injured 111 others.
Russian officials accused Ukraine of carrying out the attack, which included the use of cluster bombs, the day after an 18-hour aerial Russian barrage across Ukraine that killed at least 39 civilians.
Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told state media Russia had requested a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the incident.
"Today, the Kyiv regime attempted an indiscriminate combined strike on the city of Belgorod with two 'Olkha' missiles in a banned cluster configuration, as well as Czech-made Vampire rockets," the Defence Ministry said in a Telegram posting, adding that most rockets had been shot down.
"This crime will not go unpunished."
Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a residential area had been hit, and in a Telegram post urged all residents to move to air raid shelters.
Images of Belgorod on social media showed cars set alight and plumes of black smoke rising among damaged buildings as air raid sirens sounded.
One strike hit close to a public ice rink in the very heart of the city.
Earlier on Saturday (local time), Moscow officials reported shooting down 32 Ukrainian drones over the country's Moscow, Bryansk, Oryol and Kursk regions.
They also reported that cross-border shelling had killed two other people in Russia. A man died and four other people were injured when a missile struck a private home in the Belgorod region late Friday evening and a nine-year-old was killed in a separate incident in the Bryansk region.
Cities across western Russia have come under regular attack from drones since May, with Russian officials blaming Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the Crimean peninsula.
However, larger aerial strikes against Russia have previously followed heavy assaults on Ukrainian cities.
Russian drone strikes against Ukraine continued Saturday, with the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reporting that 10 Iranian-made Shahed drones had been shot down across the Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, and Mykolaiv regions.
On Friday, Moscow's forces launched 122 missiles and dozens of drones across Ukraine, an onslaught described by one air force official as the biggest aerial barrage of the war.
As well as the 39 deaths, at least 160 people were wounded and an unknown number were buried under rubble in the assault, which damaged a maternity hospital, apartment blocks and schools.
Australia's acting foreign minister, Mark Dreyfus, said Australia "unreservedly condemns" these Russian attacks.
"We stand with Ukraine and continue to call on Russia to end its illegal and immoral war," he said.
Fresh attacks target Kyiv and Kharkiv
Earlier, Russia launched a fresh bombardment on Ukrainian regions in the hours leading into New Year's Eve, Ukrainian officials said, targeting Kyiv and inflicting damage on residential areas of the north-eastern city of Kharkiv.
Ukraine's air defence systems in the region surrounding Kyiv were engaged late on Saturday in repelling Russia's drone attack, the military administration of the region said on their Telegram messaging channel.
The scale or potential damage of the attack was not immediately clear.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city where twin Russian missile strikes on Saturday injured at least 21 people, a fresh drone attack that came in several waves hit residential buildings in the city centre, spouting fires, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram.
The Kharkiv regional chief prosecutor said two boys aged 14 and 16 and a security advisor for a team of German journalists were among those injured.
The missiles came from the direction of Belgorod, Russia, he added.
The head of the regional police in Kharkiv, Volodymyr Tymoshenko, said preliminary evidence suggested Russia had used S-300 missiles as surface-to-surface weapons to hit Kharkiv.
One missile hit the Kharkiv Palace Hotel, and the second hit a residential building in central Kharkiv.
Another three hit an industrial area but caused no damage, Mr Tymoshenko said.
Oleh Synehubov, governor of Kharkiv region, said 10 of the victims were in hospital, and one woman was in a serious condition.
"We are fixing damage to a medical institution, multi-apartment residential buildings, shops, public places and transportation," Mr Synehubov said.
Winter assault
Western officials and analysts recently warned that Russia limited its cruise missile strikes for months in an apparent effort to build up stockpiles for massive strikes during the winter, hoping to break the Ukrainians' spirit.
Fighting along the front line is largely bogged down by winter weather after Ukraine's summer counteroffensive failed to make a significant breakthrough along the roughly 1,000 kilometre line of contact.
Russia's ongoing aerial attacks have also sparked concern for Ukraine's neighbours.
Poland's defence forces said Friday that an unknown object had entered the country's airspace before vanishing off radars, and that all indications pointed to it being a Russian missile.
Speaking to Russian state media Saturday, Russia's Charge d'Affaires in Poland, Andrei Ordash, said that Moscow would not comment on the event until Warsaw had given the Kremlin evidence of an airspace violation.
"We will not give any explanations until we are presented with concrete evidence because these accusations are unsubstantiated," Mr Ordash said.
AP/Reuters
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