Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 677

Summary for Monday, 1st January 2024 - DAY 677

• Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his New Year address early on Monday said Ukraine had become stronger in overcoming serious difficulties as the war against Russia moves toward its second year. He said the war had taught Ukrainians to withstand Russian attacks and adapt to hardships, including blackouts, the operation of industry and threats to shipping its exports. “The major result of the year, its main achievement: Ukraine has become stronger. Ukrainians have become stronger,” Zelenskiy said in the address.
  
  
• Zelenskiy pointed to Ukrainian successes in containing and attacking Russia’s navy in the Black Sea, confirmed “by their large landing ships, missile-armed and patrol corvettes on the bottom of the sea.”
  
  
• Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has spoken of his country’s “united society”, hailing Russian soldiers as heroes while making only a passing reference to the war in Ukraine in his New Year address. Putin described 2024 as the “year of the family”.
  
  
• Ukraine’s air force said that Russia launched a new overnight air attack, targeting Mykolaiv, Odesa and Dnipro regions.
  
  
• Ukraine’s shelling of the city of Donetsk early on New Year’s Day killed three people, a Russian-installed official in the eastern region of Ukraine said.
  
  
• Russia had also launched a bombardment on Ukrainian regions in the hours leading into New Year’s Eve, targeting Kyiv and inflicting damage on residential areas of the city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said.
  
  
• The Kharkiv mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said the drone attack came in several waves, hitting residential buildings in the city centre and starting fires. “All relevant emergency services are already on the site. Information about potential casualties is being clarified.”
  
  
• The death toll from a Ukrainian rocket attack on the Russian city of Belgorod just north of Ukraine rose to 24 on Sunday, the governor of the Belgorod region said. Russian officials said 110 were wounded. The Guardian has not been able to independently verify Russian reports.
  
  
• Ukrainian officials said that two boys aged 14 and 16 and a security adviser for a team of German journalists were among those injured in Kharkiv.
  
  
• Russia’s defence ministry said it hit “decision-making centres” and military facilities in Kharkiv in response to the shelling of Belgorod.
  
  
• Ukraine has denied Russia’s claims that a missile strike on a Kharkiv hotel killed Ukrainian intelligence officers and military “involved in the planning and execution of the attack on the city of Belgorod”.
  
  
• A Ukrainian security source told the BBC that casualties in Belgorod were the result of “incompetent work of Russian air defence”, suggesting debris from failed Russian interceptors fell on the city. The Guardian could not independently verify the claim.
  
  
• Ukraine’s military destroyed 21 out of 49 attack drones launched by Russia in its latest overnight airstrike, Kyiv’s air force said on Sunday.
  
  
• China’s president, Xi Jinping, said on Sunday that the foundation of Chinese-Russian ties had grown stronger in 2023, as he exchanged New Year greetings with his counterpart Putin, state media reported.
  
  
• In an intelligence briefing, the MoD said the average daily number of Russian casualties (killed and wounded) had risen by almost 300 a day compared with 2022. “The increase in daily averages, as reported by the Ukrainian authorities, almost certainly reflects the degradation of Russia’s forces and its transition to a lower quality, high quantity mass army since the ‘partial mobilisation’ of reservists in September 2022.”
  
  
• Volodymyr Zelenskiy vows to unleash ‘wrath’ on Russian forces in 2024. But the Ukrainian president’s new year’s address made almost no direct reference to the situation on the frontline or the limited success of a counteroffensive launched in June.
  
  
• Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of New Year’s Day attacks. Five people have been killed in attacks on Ukraine’s southern Odesa region and the occupied eastern city of Donetsk.
  
  
• Ukraine claims Russia has launched a ‘record number’ of attack drones. Ukraine’s Air Force said 87 out of 90 drones had successfully been shot down in the hours leading into New Year’s Day.
  
  
• Vladimir Putin calls Ukrainian strikes on Belgorod ‘terrorist act’ that will ‘not go unpunished’. Russia’s president said it would continue to strike “sensitive” military targets in Ukraine.
  
  
• The death toll following Ukrainian strikes on Belgorod has risen to 25, according to region’s governor. Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Monday a four-year-old girl died from injuries sustained in the attack.
  

Russia's 2024 gets off to worst possible start

St. Petersburg canceled New Year's Eve celebrations at short notice following missile attacks on the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border.
The decision not to hold a concert to see in 2024 came as a fire gutted a premises in Moscow in the latest unexplained blaze to hit a building in Russia in recent months.

St. Petersburg's Gov. Alexander Beglov posted on Telegram on Sunday that a concert planned for Palace Square in the city center had been canceled to show solidarity with Belgorod following a missile attack which Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.

The attack on Belgorod appeared to be Kyiv's response to a massive and deadly Russian air assault a day earlier and was swiftly followed by what Ukrainian officials said were Russian drone and missile strikes against the city of Kharkiv, about 40 miles away in an apparent retaliation.

Russia's Defense Ministry said that at least 24 people had been killed in the strike, including three children, and 110 injured on Saturday, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

New Year 2024 numerals decoration in central Moscow on December 31, 2023. St. Petersburg canceled its New Year's Eve celebrations following missile attacks on Belgorod which Russia blames on Ukraine. ALEXANDER NEMENOV/Getty Images

Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, has opened a criminal case into "attempted murder," "murder" and "deliberate destruction or damage to property."

Russian authorities said most of the rockets it claims were fired by Ukraine had been shot down, but that debris had fallen on the city. Kyiv has not officially commented and Russian assertations could not be independently verified.

Beglov said that residents had asked him not to hold New Year's celebrations and that his city could help Belgorod repair destroyed facilities, adding, "St. Petersburg is with Belgorod."

Video shared on social media showed how Nevsky Prospect, a main street in Russia's second city leading to Palace Square, had been closed with the announcement about the cancelation being made over a loudspeaker.

Meanwhile, social media users shared video of a fire which had broken out at a facility in the west of Moscow, around nine miles from the Kremlin. Black smoke could be seen billowing into the sky amid the sound of explosions.
Emergency services told the state-run news agency Tass that a fire had broken out in a "hangar with diesel fuel" on Krylatskaya Street and that explosions had been heard inside the premises, which belong to a ski resort.
The fire had spread across 800 square meters (8,600 square feet), Tass said, and there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Environmental Prosecutor's Office of Moscow, which Newsweek has contacted for comment by email, posted images of the burnt-out building on Telegram and said it was investigating the circumstances of the fire.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, there have been numerous unexplained fires and explosions at facilities like depots, with many incidents blamed on Kyiv.

Woman injured in Russian attack on Kherson suburb

The Russians bombarded Kherson hromada on 1 January, injuring one person [a hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories – ed.].

At least two killed, one injured in Russian drone attack in Sumy

Ukrainian rescue workers were still searching through the rubble Monday evening following a kamikaze drone attack on a residential apartment building.

Russians kill 73-year-old woman in Avdiivka, third victim in Donetsk Oblast on New Year's Day

A 73-year-old local resident was killed in Avdiivka as a result of Russian bombardment on Monday, 1 January.

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 677

As the war enters its 677th day, these are the main developments.

Fighting

• Russia launched a new wave of drone and missile attacks across Ukraine, with at least 28 people injured after six missiles hit the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Russia said the attack on Ukraine’s second biggest city was “retaliation” for a deadly Ukrainian air raid on the Russian city of Belgorod not far from the border. Moscow targeted a hotel housing military commanders and “foreign mercenaries” as well as the headquarters of the Ukrainian Security Service for the region. Kharkiv city officials said the missiles struck residential buildings, hotels and medical facilities, while drones hit residential buildings.
  
  
• Ukraine’s Air Force said it had destroyed 21 of 49 Iranian-made Shahed drones Russia fired in its latest attack. Most were aimed at the front line and parts of the Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia regions, it said.
  
  
• Separately, Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said that three people were killed when Russian forces shelled a village near the front line.
  
  
• In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, meanwhile, Russian shelling killed a 14-year-old boy and left a 9-year-old boy in hospital in critical condition, according to regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
  

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy struck an optimistic note as he sought to rally the country in his New Year address. The 20-minute video message from his Kyiv office made almost no direct reference to the situation on the 1,000km (600-mile) front line or the limited success of a counteroffensive launched in June. Nor did it refer to the political and diplomatic challenges facing Kyiv as it seeks to secure continued military and other aid from its allies. Instead, Zelenskyy stressed the strength and unity of the Ukrainian people in the face of Russia’s aggression and referenced successes against the Russian Navy in the Black Sea. He promised that Ukraine would wreak “wrath” on Russian forces in 2024.
  
  
• In his New Year’s address, Russian President Vladimir Putin made only passing reference to the invasion, praising Russia’s soldiers on the front line as “heroes” in a fight for “truth and justice”. He also called for unity among Russians in the face of “difficult tasks” and lauded Russian citizens’ “solidarity, mercy and fortitude.” The four-minute pre-recorded video was aired just before midnight in each of Russia’s 11 time zones.