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Vladimir Putin has accused the West of using Ukraine to “destroy” his country, while Volodymyr Zelensky has said Moscow is in league with the devil – as Russian forces unleashed a fresh wave of more than 20 missile strikes on Kyiv and a number of other targets.
At least one person was killed in the Ukrainian capital as explosions and air raid sirens filled Kyiv’s skies throughout Saturday during the second round of missile strikes on the capital in three days. At least a dozen people were injured in the attacks, dubbed as “Terror on New Year’s Eve” by Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets.
New year festivities were in short supply for many people across the country as Russia continues to go after vital infrastructure, causing sweeping power blackouts and other outages as the cold weather bites.
A hotel just south of Kyiv’s city centre was hit and a residential building in another district was damaged, according to the city administration. A Japanese journalist was among the wounded and taken to a hospital, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Other cities across Ukraine also came under fire. In the southern region of Mykolaiv, the local governor Vitaliy Kim said on television that six people had been wounded. 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 Mr Tymoshenko said had damaged residential buildings.
Army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said air defences shot down 12 incoming cruise missiles, including six around Kyiv region, five in the Zhytomyrska region and one in the Khmelnytskyi region.
In his pre-recorded message, Mr Putin sought to rally the Russian people behind what the invasion, repeating the rhetoric that Ukrainian “neo-Nazis” and a West that he claims is intent on “destroying Russia”.
Smoke billows from a power infrastructure following a Russian drone attack in Kyiv region
(AP)
In the nine-minute address, broadcast on national television Mr Putin targeted those opposed to the conflict, a personal crusade that now defines his tenure and Russia’s relations with the world.
The past year, he said, had “put a lot of things in their place – clearly separating courage and heroism from betrayal and cowardice”. Russian soldiers, he said, were fighting for “our motherland, truth and justice … so that Russia’s security can be guaranteed”.
In a rejection of Kyiv’s calls for Russian troops to leave as a precursor to peace negotiations, Mr Putin said Russia was “defending our people and our historical territory”.
Speaking in his own address, Mr Zelensky noted 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.
Addressing Russian speakers, Mr Zelensky said Mr 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.
One bit of diplomacy that has worked in recent months has been prisoner exchanges and the two countries said they had freed more than 200 captured soldiers,
Volodymyr Zelensky told Ukrainians the country’s defence systems would improve next year
(Ukraine President’s Office)
Despite the bombardment, some defiant Ukrainians returned home to the capital to see loved ones to bring in what looks set to be another difficult and dangerous year ahead for the country.
Soldiers, families and young couples separated by the fighting were among those refusing to be cowed by the Russian assault.
At Kyiv’s central railway station on Saturday morning, Mykyta, still in his uniform, gripped a bouquet of pink roses tightly as he waited on platform 9 for his wife Valeriia to arrive from Poland.
He hadn’t seen her in six months. “It actually was really tough, you know, to wait so long,” he said.
Nearby, another soldier, Vasyl Khomko, 42, joyously met his daughter Yana and wife Galyna who have been living in Slovakia due to the war, but returned to Kyiv to spend New Year’s Eve together.
Vasyl Khomko with his daughter
(AP)
Valeriia first sought refuge from the conflict in Spain but later moved to Poland. Asked what their New Year’s Eve plans were, she answered simply: “Just to be together.”
The couple declined to share their family name for security reasons as Mykyta has been fighting on the front lines in both southern and eastern Ukraine.
On platform 8, another young couple reunited.
University student Arseniia Kolomiiets, 23, has been living in Italy. Despite longing to see her boyfriend Daniel Liashchenko in Kyiv, she was scared of Russian missiles and drone attacks.
“He was like, ‘Please come! Please come! Please come!’” she recalled. “I decided that (being) scared is one part, but being with beloved ones on the holidays is the most important.
“So, I overcome my fear and here I am now.”
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
