Ukraine stated at the very least 56 fight clashes with Russian forces befell on the primary day of the yr after a “report quantity” of drone and missile assaults struck Ukrainian cities over the previous 24 hours, whereas Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to accentuate assaults within the days forward.
The Ukrainian army’s Basic Workers on January 1 stated clashes took tempo within the Donetsk area and close to the long-fought-after cities of Bakhmut, Bohdanyivka, Klishchiyivka, and Andriyivka and that the Russian assaults had been repelled.
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Ukrainian army authorities didn’t touch upon casualties by the Russian facet or their very own.
In an interview with The Economist revealed on January 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy once more blasted Russia as a ”terrorist nation” and stated the Kremlin is displaying no indicators of searching for peace regardless of its continued losses on the battlefield.
Zelenskiy stated any indication that Putin is searching for talks is only a reflection of the truth that he’s operating out of troops and armaments.
Zelenskiy stated a serious focus of Ukrainian counterattacks going ahead can be to decrease Russian forces’ energy in Crimea, at the same time as his army defends under-pressure cities within the east, the place civilians more and more have gotten victims of Russian drone and missile assaults.
”I see solely the steps of a terrorist nation,” he stated within the interview.
In his New 12 months’s Eve video handle, Zelenskiy thanked his nation’s residents for resisting the Russian invasion and referred to as on them to stay by the rule “both you’re employed otherwise you struggle.”
“As a result of the world’s largest terrorist group is in opposition to us,” he stated. “And it’s apparent how rather more we should always do, how extra actively we should always work, and the way a lot stronger our unity and our wrestle needs to be.”
In the meantime, Putin, talking at a army hospital within the Moscow area on January 1, referred to as the December 30 shelling of the Russian metropolis of Belgorod, which reportedly killed 25 folks, a “terrorist assault” and vowed to accentuate assaults in opposition to Ukraine.
”What occurred in Belgorod is, in fact, a terrorist act,” Putin stated. ”They need to intimidate us and create uncertainty inside the nation. We will step up the punches.”
Putin accused Ukraine of attacking civilian areas, whereas claiming that Moscow targets solely army websites, regardless of Russian missile and drones routinely hitting residential and civilian areas in Ukraine.
Kyiv has not commented on the assault on Belgorod, though officers commonly state that Russia has used the area to launch assaults in opposition to Ukrainian websites.
Assaults from the air by either side have been reported on the primary day of 2024 because the anniversary of Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion strikes nearer.
The Ukrainian Air Drive wrote on Telegram that it had destroyed 87 of the Iranian-made Shahed drones fired at its cities in a single day, including that air defenses have been working throughout the nation.
The air power later stated it had shot down 9 of 10 further Russia-launched drones ”from the north” throughout New 12 months’s Day and that two additional Shahed drones close to Kryviy Rih within the south.
Battlefield claims made by both facet can not instantly be verified due to the preventing within the areas.
Oleh Kiper, the Ukrainian head of the Odesa regional administration, stated that one civilian was killed and 9 have been injured in a Russian assault on the Black Sea port metropolis.
Ukraine’s army stated the drone assault on Odesa focused port infrastructure and {that a} hearth had damaged out at one port terminal.
“A lot of drones have been directed from the ocean towards the coastal zone,” the Southern Navy Command stated in an announcement on Telegram.
The command additionally stated Russia had three surface-to-air missile carriers on obligation within the Black Sea armed with 24 Kalibr cruise missiles.
“The missile menace stage is extraordinarily excessive,” the assertion stated.
Within the western metropolis of Lviv, a drone strike destroyed a museum dedicated to controversial World Conflict II-era army commander Roman Shukhevych, who fought for Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union and collaborated with Nazi Germany.
Though the constructing was destroyed, most of its holdings had been eliminated within the early days of the full-scale Russian invasion.
A drone strike additionally broken a college within the Lviv area metropolis of Dublyany, the place there’s a museum to Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera, who led an rebel conflict in opposition to Soviet forces and in addition collaborated with the Nazis and who studied in Dublyany within the Nineteen Thirties.
WATCH: Kharkiv, the second-largest metropolis in Ukraine, woke as much as Russian missile and drone strikes on December 31.
Within the northeastern Ukrainian metropolis of Sumy, the regional administration stated a Russian-launched Shahed drone hit a two-story residential constructing, killing one girl and trapping a variety of different folks beneath the rubble.
Within the Russia-occupied metropolis of Donetsk, Moscow-installed officers stated 4 folks have been killed and 13 others injured in in a single day shelling. A neighborhood official stated one of many killed was a journalist with Russia’s state-run TASS information company, though the particular person was not recognized.