War in Ukraine, day 674 | Record Russian strikes kill at least 30, injure 160

(Kyiv) Russia carried out a vast series of strikes on Friday on several cities in Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, with “a record number of missiles”, which left, according to Ukrainian authorities, at least 30 dead and more than 160 injured.

The UN secretary-general spoke out against what he called “appalling attacks” on towns and villages. Poland, a NATO member country, denounced on Friday a “violation” of its airspace “by a cruise missile”, calling on Russia to “immediately cease this type of operation”.

“Russia has used almost every type of weapon in its arsenal,” declared President Volodymyr Zelensky on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russia fired nearly 160 devices, including cruise missiles and Shahed explosive drones. The anti-aircraft defense managed to shoot down 88 missiles and 27 drones.

“This is the most massive missile attack,” excluding the first days of the war, air force spokesman Yuri Ignat told AFP.

The strikes hit essential infrastructure, industrial, military and civilian installations, the General Staff said in a report.

Russian authorities, for their part, indicated that a Ukrainian strike on a residential building in Belgorod, a Russian town located 80 km north of Kharkiv, left one dead and four injured.

A total of 13 Ukrainian missiles were intercepted over the Belgorod region and 32 drones neutralized in the Bryansk, Kursk and Orel sectors, north of the Ukrainian border, as well as Moscow, according to the Russian Defense Ministry .

Appeal to Congress

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 Marinka on the eastern front.

They also come in a context of running out of Western aid to Kyiv, both in Europe and in the United States, threatening the country with a shortage of ammunition and funds.

“The world must see that we need more help and means to stop this terror,” Andriï Iermak, Mr. Zelensky’s chief of staff, pleaded on Telegram.

A comment echoed by American President Joe Biden, who called on Congress, which is currently refusing to allocate more money to Kyiv, to “act without further delay” after these “massive bombings”.

“Unless Congress takes urgent action in the new year, we will not be able to continue sending the weapons and air defense systems that Ukraine needs to protect its people,” he said. he warned.

Volodymyr Zelensky once again urged the United States on Thursday to maintain its “essential” assistance, after the release of a new tranche of 250 million dollars (225 million euros), the last without a new vote in the American Congress , which for the moment refuses to allocate more.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose country announced on Friday the sending of around 200 anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine to strengthen its defenses, said these strikes demonstrated that Vladimir Putin “will stop at nothing”. France condemned a “strategy of terror”.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban vetoed a new EU aid package, a problem that Europeans hope to resolve at a summit in early February 2024.

“Cowardly Strikes”

Denouncing “cowardly strikes”, the head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, promised that the EU would stand “by Ukraine’s side, for as long as necessary”.

“At present, 30 people have been killed and more than 160 injured as a result of Russia’s massive attack on Ukrainian territory in the morning,” Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on Telegram.

Russia limited itself to indicating in its daily briefing that “all targets” had been “achieved”.

She claimed to have targeted military infrastructure, ammunition depots and places of deployment of Ukrainian soldiers in more than 50 strikes, including a “major” one in Ukraine between December 23 and 29.

In Kyiv, a 3000 m hangar² was engulfed in flames in the Podil district. A metro station used as an air raid shelter was damaged, as well as several apartment buildings and hangars.

A maternity ward in Dnipro was also “severely damaged”, but without casualties, according to the Ministry of Health.

Missile in Poland

Poland summoned the Russian charge d’affaires in Poland to hand him a note demanding “to explain the incident of violation of the airspace of the Republic of Poland by a cruise missile and to immediately cease this type of operations”.

In November 2022, a Ukrainian missile fell on the Polish village of Przewodow, near Ukraine, killing two civilians and briefly sparking fears of an extension of the conflict.

In the evening, President Zelensky announced that he had gone to Avdiïvka, an industrial city in the east that Russian troops have been trying to surround for months. He presented decorations to soldiers and discussed their needs to continue defending the city.