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Missile strikes on Ukraine kill one, Zelenskiy says Russians in league with the devil

Published 12/31/2022, 07:54 AM
Updated 12/31/2022, 06:02 PM
© Reuters. A member of the military walks at the site of a building damaged during a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 31, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

© Reuters. A member of the military walks at the site of a building damaged during a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 31, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

(Fixes typo in headline)

By Dan Peleschuk and Olena Harmash

KYIV (Reuters) - Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles at targets in Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least one person in Kyiv, in attacks President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said showed Moscow was in league with the devil.

The second barrage of major Russian missile attacks in three days badly damaged a Kyiv hotel and a residential building. Energy Minister German Galushchenko on Facebook (NASDAQ:META) said the strikes had not caused serious damage to the national power system.

Russia has been attacking vital Ukraine infrastructure since October with barrages of missile and drones, causing sweeping power blackouts as the cold weather bites.

Zelenskiy speaking in a video address noted that Russia had also launched attacks at Easter and Christmas.

"They call themselves Christians ... but they are for the devil. They are for him and with him," he said.

At least a dozen people were injured in the attacks. A Japanese journalist was among the wounded and taken to a hospital, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

DTEK, the country's largest private energy company, later said it had cancelled emergency power outages in Kyiv and the surrounding region.

Zelenskiy in comments addressed to Russian speakers said President Vladimir Putin was destroying Russia's future.

"No one will forgive you for terror. No one in the world will forgive you for this. Ukraine will not forgive," he said, reiterating calls for allies to supply more anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems.

Army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said air defences shot down 12 incoming cruise missiles, including six around the Kyiv region, five in the Zhytomyrskiy region and one in the Khmeltnytskiy region.

The cruise missiles had been launched from strategic bombers over the Caspian Sea hundreds of miles away and from land-based launchers, he said on Telegram.

"Russia's mass missile attack is deliberately targeting residential areas, not even our energy infrastructure," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter after the attack.

"War criminal Putin 'celebrates' New Year by killing people," Kuleba said, calling for Russia to be deprived of its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets described the attack as "Terror on New Year's Eve."

NATIONWIDE BLASTS

Other cities across Ukraine also came under fire. In the southern region of Mykolaiv, local governor Vitaliy Kim on television said that six people had been wounded.

Kim in a separate post on Telegram said Russia had targeted civilians with the strikes, something Moscow has previously denied.

"According to today's tendencies, the occupiers are striking not just critical (infrastructure) ... in many cities (they are targeting) simply residential areas, hotels, garages, roads."

In the western city of Khmelnytskyi, two people were wounded in a drone attack, Ukrainian presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko said. He also reported a strike in the southern industrial city of Zaporizhzhia, which Tymoshenko said had damaged residential buildings.

Ukraine's defence ministry responded on Telegram by saying: "With each new missile attack on civilian infrastructure, more and more Ukrainians are convinced of the need to fight until the complete collapse of Putin's regime."

Curfews ranging from 7 p.m. to midnight remained in place across Ukraine, making celebrations for the start of 2023 impossible in public spaces.

© Reuters. A local resident embraces his son as they stand next to a site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 31, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko      TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Several regional governors posted messages on social media warning residents not to break restrictions on New Year's Eve.

(This story has been refiled to fix a typo in the headline)

Latest comments

Let’s zelenskiy decide what he wants and give him that
Russia is a country of lies hope it woll be destroyed we will be better without this people
Zelinskiy is confused. ALL christians are to forgive no matter who is to blame or what side you're on.
You are confused get out off the closet homoooo
spreading hate?
Hitler was 2 clicks better than Zelensky.
Hitler should have killed all the Russians
zelensky needs to look in the mirror. if hes not a christian hes in the same camp
I agree, he should never have invaded a neighboring country and attacked it civilians contrary to the vote of 144 nations at the United Nations.
Joe Biden said in 2009 ‘It’s time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia." He and Obama did little in 2014 when the Ukraine invasion began. There's no realistic end in sight to war now.
eah! Biden is to blame for the bellicose decisions of deluded Putin. Another clear-eyed insight from amoral Stephen Fa.
Stephen Fa is right. Tell me, what did the weak Obama/Biden administration do when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014? Anything?
I hope the west will support ukrane to dead off put in and his soldiers on drugs
Nato needs to fight this is ridiculous. At least give them some weapons that can take the war to moscows doorstep. This is a tradgedy our poosy generation will never live down in history.
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