Russia pounds Ukraine with missiles and drones, five dead

[January 02, 2024]  By Olena Harmash and Tom Balmforth

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia fired scores of missiles and drones at the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the northeastern city of Kharkiv on Tuesday, killing at least five civilians, wounding dozens and causing widespread damage, officials said.

The third successive day of air strikes on Ukraine followed a warning by President Vladimir Putin on Monday that a Ukrainian air attack on the Russian city of Belgorod, which Moscow said killed 25 civilians, would "not go unpunished".

Smoke belched out of the charred side of a high-rise residential building where Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said missile debris had come crashing down meters away, leaving a crater.

He said an elderly woman had died in an ambulance after being wounded at the site and that 43 other people were hurt. Emergency services said a body had also been recovered on the eighth floor of the damaged building.

"Russia will answer for every life (that it has) taken away," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messenger.

Russia stepped up its missile and drone strikes on Ukraine on Dec. 29 when it launched its largest air attack of the war, killing at least 39 people.

Almost two years after Moscow's full-scale invasion, Russia holds swathes of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, and there is no end in sight to the war. Russia depicts a Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in mid-2023 as a failure, and front lines have changed little in recent months.

ENERGY SUPPLIES HIT

Klitschko said gas pipelines had been damaged in Kyiv's Pecherskyi district, and electricity and water had been cut off in several districts of the capital.

Private energy company DTEK was working to restore power, but the outages brought back memories of last winter when Russia pounded the energy grid with missiles, causing frequent power cuts and plunging millions into darkness.

A fire is seen after a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine January 2, 2024. REUTERS/Vladyslav Musiienko

Ukrainian air defenses, boosted by supplies from Kyiv's Western allies, downed all 10 incoming "Kinzhal" missiles fired in the latest attack as well as 59 of the 70 cruise missiles and all three Kalibr cruise missiles, army chief General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on Kyiv's Western allies to accelerate supplies of air defense systems, long-range missiles and combat drones.

In Kharkiv, a 91-year-old woman was killed in a missile attack that left a meters-deep crater near damaged residential buildings, Oleh Synehubov, Kharkiv's regional governor, said.

Forty-five people were wounded in the attack on the city centre at about 07:30 (0530 GMT), he said.

The volley of missiles was preceded by a drone attack that Ukraine said it had repelled hours earlier.

A married couple were killed and 11 people were hurt in the area outside Kyiv, the regional administration said. A dozen residential buildings and at least 60 cars were also damaged, it said.

(Additional reporting by Valentyn Ogirenko and Gleb Garanich in Kyiv and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Timothy Heritage)

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