“These weeks the nights can be quite restless.” A new airstrike targeted Kyiv early Monday, after a New Year’s Day marked by dozens of Russian strikes in Ukraine that left at least five dead and dozens injured.
On Monday, during his daily address to the Ukrainian people, Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country’s anti-aircraft defense had shot down more than eighty “Iranian drones.”
“Only two days have passed since the beginning of the year and the number of Iranian drones shot down over Ukraine is already over eighty, he stated before adding that this number could increase in the near future.”
The risk of a “prolonged attack”
The Ukrainian president also revealed that Russia, according to Ukrainian information, would have opted for the “bet on the depletion of the people, the air defense and the energy sector” in this open conflict for more than ten months.
“We have information that Russia is planning a prolonged attack with ‘Shaheds’ (the Iranian drones used by Russia, editor’s note),” he said.
But he called on the Ukrainian people to “make sure, and we will do everything possible for that, that this target of the terrorists fails like all the others.”
Shortly before and after the transition to 2023 on Sunday, shelling in Kyiv and seven other regions had already killed at least five people and injured 50, according to Ukrainian authorities. For its part, Moscow claimed to have attacked drone manufacturing facilities.
63 Russian soldiers die on New Year’s Eve
Responding to numerous Russian attacks on energy infrastructure over the past several weeks, Ukraine shelled a Russian army “provisional deployment center” in a Russian-occupied city east of the separatist stronghold of Donetsk overnight from Saturday to Sunday. .
Russia acknowledged on Monday the deaths of 63 of its soldiers in Ukraine, the highest losses in a single attack admitted by Moscow since the start of the invasion.
The Ukrainian army, which claimed responsibility for the attack, spoke of a much higher toll, which could reach 400 dead soldiers, according to him.
Source: BFM TV
