Putin vows to continue bombing after a Russian city is hit
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia vowed Monday to continue rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities in retaliation for what he called a “terror attack” on the Russian city of Belgorod last week.
“They want to scare us, to create some uncertainty in the country,” Putin said during a televised meeting with the veterans of the war in Ukraine. “For our part, we will build up the strikes.”
Putin’s rare public comments about an attack on Russian territory come as his forces have pounded Ukrainian cities in recent days with some of the largest rocket attacks since the invasion began, and as both sides look for ways to strike a to break the impasse. on the battlefield.
The cycle of strikes and retaliation is raising fears that there will be more civilian casualties in the conflict, which began in February 2022.
On Saturday, Ukraine appeared to have hit back by bombing Belgorod in an attack that killed at least 22 people and injured nearly 110 others. It was the deadliest attack on a Russian city since the start of the war.
The Ukrainian government has not publicly commented on the attack on Belgorod, as is usually the case when Russian territory is hit. But a Ukrainian intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack was in response to Russia’s massive and deadly airstrike on Ukrainian cities on Friday, and that only military facilities were targeted.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that Ukraine had hit Belgorod – a regional center of about 330,000 inhabitants about 40 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border – with two rockets and several rockets, adding that the attack was “indiscriminate.”
Mr Putin had also falsely claimed that Russian attacks targeted only military facilities.
“We will continue to do it,” he said, referring to the strikes. “We do it today and we will do it tomorrow.”
In the hours leading up to New Year’s Eve, a major holiday in both Russia and Ukraine, Moscow hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, just 90 kilometers across the border from Belgorod, with missiles and drones. Ukrainian officials said the attack injured nearly 30 people and seriously damaged a hotel, hospitals and residential buildings.
The attacks continued on Sunday and Monday Ukrainian Air Force says that Russia had launched “a record number” of attack drones, an estimated 90 in total, against Ukraine in the early hours of the new year.
Ukraine said it had shot down all but three drones, but added that falling debris had damaged civilian infrastructure and caused casualties. In the southern port city of Odesa, a frequent target of Russian forces, a 15-year-old boy was killed and seven people were injured after debris hit a residential building. local authorities said. In the western city of Lviv, falling debris caused a fire at a local museum.
Russia will be held responsible for “all strikes in Odessa, the Sumy region, Kiev and all our other cities and regions,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said. he said in his late-night speech on Saturday, after the attack on Belgorod. He suggested there would be retaliation for Russian attacks. “Both politically and very practically,” he said.