Between Kiev and Moscow, no New Year's truce

Russia will "intensify" its strikes on military targets in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin announced on Monday while Kyiv, in mourning, pays tribute to the 28 victims of Russian shelling this weekend.

There will be no truce in attacks between Russian and Ukrainian belligerents on January 1, 2024, as evidenced by this burning building in Dublyany, in the Lviv region. AP - Ukrainian Emergency Service

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Attacks continue with the same intensity between the two belligerents. Kiev said on Monday that it had faced a "record" attack by 90 drones fired by Russia on New Year's Eve that targeted Lviv and Odessa, killing at least one person. The Ukrainian Air Force claims on Telegram to have destroyed in flight 87 of these 90 Shahed explosive drones launched from Russia, reports the France press agency. It also reported strikes using four S-300 surface-to-air missiles in the northeastern Kharkiv region and three Kh-31 and one Kh-59 anti-radar missiles targeting the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south.

In the western region of Lviv, the strikes destroyed a university and a museum whose history is linked to two Ukrainian nationalist figures and Nazi collaborators during World War II, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovy. In the southern Odessa region, one person was killed and eight wounded in the overnight attack, according to local authorities. In Khmelnytsky, a child was injured. A woman was also killed in Russian shelling in the Kherson region on Monday, the head of the regional administration Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram.

Russia, for its part, reported Ukrainian shelling and drone strikes on the border region of Belgorod, which this time caused no casualties.

Read alsoAn end of the year marked by an escalation of violence between Russia and Ukraine

The same aggressiveness applies to official statements. Russia will "intensify" its strikes on military targets in Ukraine in retaliation for the Ukrainian army's unprecedented shelling of the Russian city of Belgorod over the weekend, Vladimir Putin announced on Monday. "We will intensify the strikes, no crime against civilians will go unpunished, that's for sure," Putin said during a visit to a military hospital, adding that the strikes would be carried out "on military installations."

The same tone was expressed by President Zelensky who, in his wishes for 2024, promised heavy losses to the Russian army, betting in particular on the delivery of F16s and the production of weapons on its soil, Sitting at his desk, in front of the patches of the Ukrainian troops, his eternal khaki sweater on his back, Volodymyr Zelensky pronounced New Year's greetings for the second time in his costume of a president at war. With a promise, to "ravage" Russian forces.

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Next year, the enemy will suffer the ravages of our national production. Our weapons, equipment, artillery, shells, drones, naval "greetings" to the enemy and at least one million Ukrainian FPV drones. We will use all of this generously. On land, in the sky and, of course, at sea. »

Not to mention the F-16 fighter jets supplied by the Scandinavian countries, the Ukrainian president recalled. An offensive speech, supposed to boost the morale of a tired population that is still worried after almost two years of war. Not a word about the counter-offensive launched last June, without much result... President Zelensky preferred to launch a new appeal to Ukrainians to enlist in the ranks of the army.

Read also"2024 will be a critical moment for the Russia-Ukraine conflict," says historian Guillaume Lasconjarias

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