Ukrainians cheered from their balconies while their air defences blasted Russian missiles and drones out of the sky in the first hour of 2023, as Moscow launched an assault on civilian targets in Ukraine on New Year.
Ukraine’s Air Force command said it had destroyed 45 Iranian made Shahed drones overnight- 32 of them on Sunday after midnight and 13 late on Saturday. That was on top of 31 missile attacks and 12 airstrikes across the country in the past 24 hours.
Russian president Vladimir Putin signaled no retreat on his assault on Ukraine, in a grim and defiant New Year’s speech that contrasted with a hopeful message of gratitude and unity from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Drones, missiles, everything else will not help them,” Zelensky said of the Russians. “Because we stand united. They are only united by fear.”
Ukraine’s air defence system worked through the night to bring down incoming drones and to warn communities of approaching danger as Russians attacked civilian targets.
“It is loud in the region and in the capital: night drone attacks,” Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said.
“Russians launched several waves of Shahed drones targeting critical infrastructure facilities. Air defence is at work,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitchko said the strikes had knocked out some power and heating. “There are no emergency power outages in the city,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.
Earlier he said one person was wounded by debris from a destroyed drone that hit a road and damaged a building in the northeastern district of the capital.
On Twitter, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said, “Russia coldly and cowardly attacked Ukraine in the early hours of the New Year. But Putin still does not seem to understand that Ukrainians are made of iron.”
Source: Sowetan Live, Reuters, Business Recorder, image from Twitter: @totnews1