Explosions in Kyiv as reports of Russian attacks continue

Explosions rang out across Ukraine as a new wave of Russian attacks were reported on Saturday.

Air defences were activated in several regions as multiple explosions were heard across the country, with one occurring in a residential area of Kyiv, among the multi-story buildings of Solomianskyi district.

One person was killed and around a dozen have been wounded, according to the capital city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko.

In a post on Telegram, Army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said cruise missiles had been launched from strategic bombers over the Caspian Sea and from land-based launchers. Moscow has previously denied targeting civilians with strikes.

"Russia's mass missile attack is deliberately targeting residential areas, not even our energy infrastructure," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter following the assault.

"They call themselves Christians ... but they are for the devil. They are for him and with him," Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said in a video address.

"No one will forgive you for terror. No one in the world will forgive you for this. Ukraine will not forgive," he added in comments aimed at Russian speakers.

As Russian attacks continue to target power supplies leaving millions without electricity, no big celebrations are expected and a curfew will be in place as the clock rings in the new year.

It means that for millions of Ukrainians, many of them under Russian bombardment and grappling with power and water shortages, New Year's celebrations are muted as Russia’s 10-month war rumbles on with no end in sight.

In his annual New Year's address on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged victory over Ukraine and Western countries intent on "destroying Russia", despite his soldiers not making any significant battlefield gains in the past six months.

The message, broadcast into millions of homes on state TV, was delivered in front of soldiers in combat uniform, with Putin telling families that sacrifice will be required from them over the coming months.

“The West lied about peace, but was preparing for aggression, and today it admits it openly, no longer embarrassed. And they cynically use Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia,” Putin said.

“We have never allowed anyone and will not allow anyone to do this.”

Russia has justified the war by saying that Ukraine persecuted Russian speakers in the eastern Donbas region, which had been partly under the control of Russian-backed separatists since 2014. Ukraine and the West says these accusations are untrue.

At Kyiv’s central railway station on Saturday morning, Mykyta, still in his uniform, held a bouquet of pink roses 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 after hugging and kissing Valeriia.

Nearby, another soldier, Vasyl, 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.

The mood contrasted starkly with that from 10 months ago, when families were torn apart by the Russian invasion.

Back in February, fathers, husbands and sons had to stay behind as their wives, mothers and daughters boarded trains with small children seeking safety outside the country.

But on the last day of the year marked by the brutal war, many returned to the capital to spend New Year’s Eve with their loved ones, despite the ongoing Russian attacks.

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