Russia launched a large series of strikes on several cities in Ukraine, including the capital, kyiv, on the morning of Friday, December 29, with “a record number of missiles.” According to the latest assessment, which risks getting worse, Russian shooting left at least eighteen dead and 132 injured, said the Ukrainian national police, which specified that people may still be under the rubble.
The attacks particularly targeted the capital, kyiv, as well as the towns of Dnipropetrovsk (Center-East), Kharkiv (North-East), Lviv (West), Zaporizhia (South) and Odessa (South).
“Russia used almost all types of weapons in its arsenal,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on the social network X. According to the Air Force, 158 missiles and drones were fired at the Ukraine, of which 114 were destroyed. “This is the most massive missile attack” excluding the first days of the war, Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson told Agence France-Presse. Yuri Ihnat.
NATO member Poland said one of the Russian missiles fired at Ukraine briefly passed through its airspace in the morning. “He left this space” immediately, in the direction of Ukraine, declared the chief of staff, Wieslaw Kukula.
A “strategy of terror” condemned
The strikes hit “civilian installations, civilian buildings,” said Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff. “The world must see that we need more help and means to stop this terror,” he added on Telegram.
A statement echoed by the American ambassador, Bridget Brink, according to which “Ukraine needs funds now to continue fighting”. On Wednesday, Washington released the last tranche of military aid granted to kyiv until further notice by the American Congress.
The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, considered that these strikes demonstrated that Vladimir Putin “will stop at nothing”, while France condemned “with the greatest firmness” a “strategy of terror”.
Denouncing “cowardly strikes”, the head of European Union diplomacy, Josep Borrell, promised that the European Union “will stand alongside Ukraine, as long as it takes”. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on Moscow to “immediately end these attacks” and “respect international laws governing conflict.”
“All targets have been achieved”
Russia limited itself to ensuring, in its daily briefing, that “all targets have been achieved”. She claimed to have targeted military infrastructure, ammunition depots and places where Ukrainian soldiers were deployed during more than fifty strikes, including a “major” one between December 23 and 29.
The UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, condemned “a hateful wave of attacks” on X, illustrating the “horrible reality” experienced by Ukrainians.
In kyiv, a 3,000 square meter hangar was set on fire in the Podil district. A metro station used as an air raid shelter was damaged, as well as several apartment buildings and other hangars. A maternity hospital in Dnipro was also “severely damaged”, but without casualties, according to the Ukrainian Health Ministry.
The wave of Russian strikes ends a difficult year for Ukraine, marked by the failure of its summer counter-offensive and a resumption of initiative by Moscow’s forces, who this week claimed the capture of the town of Marïnka on the eastern front. They also occur in a context of running out of Western aid to kyiv, both in Europe and in the United States, threatening the country with running out of ammunition and funds.