Russia Ukraine war: ‘Would intensify strikes on military targets in…’, Putin warns

‘Russian forces would intensify strikes on military targets in Ukraine’, said President on Monday after an unprecedented Ukrainian attack over the weekend on the Russian city of Belgorod that killed 25 people including five children. This came after Moscow launched a large scale attack on Ukrainian cities.

Kyiv also said Russia had targeted the country with a "record" number of drones on New Year's Day, reported. During a visit to a military hospital, Putin said, “We're going to intensify the strikes. No crime against civilians will rest unpunished, that's for certain. We are doing that today and tomorrow we will continue doing it." His comments came at the end of a deadly week in Ukraine, with both sides hitting each other with large scale attacks.

Putin said would continue to hit what he called "military installations". "What happened in Belgorod is a terrorist act," he told wounded Russian soldiers sitting near him in hospital pajamas and sanitary masks. "There is no other way to call it." He accused Ukrainian forces of targeting "right in the city center, where people were walking around, before New Year's Eve", and alleged they had "purposefully hit the civilian population".

Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced Monday that the death toll from the attack on the city had risen to 25, saying medics were unable to save a toddler who was seriously injured in the attack. "This is an irreparable loss for all of us," Gladkov said, adding that 109 people were wounded, 45 of whom were still in medical facilities, as per reports.

Speaking about the situation on the battlefield, Putin said the "strategic initiative" in the drawn out conflict in since the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer. He also claimed that Moscow wanted to end the conflict "as quickly as possible" but "only on our terms", according to Russia's state run TASS news agency.

'Record' drones Ukraine said Monday that it had foiled a "record" number of Russian drones on the night of New Year's Eve, after a week of escalation. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched 90 Iranian made Shahed drones on the last night of the year, of which 87 were destroyed.

Two people were killed when a drone struck a two story residential building in the northeastern Sumy region, the Ukrainian interior ministry said Monday, with another person wounded. Kyiv also said Russian shelling killed one person on New Year's Day in the southern Odesa region and another person in Kherson, also in the south.

Ukraine's air force said a total of 10 Shahed drones were launched Monday afternoon, of which nine were intercepted. The barrage came after Russia pounded Ukraine in the last days of 2023, killing 39 people in one of the biggest strikes in the war. Meanwhile, Ukrainian shelling of the killed four people, according to Russian installed authorities.

"As a result of Ukrainian shelling of central Donetsk on New Year's Eve we can say that there are four dead and 13 wounded," the head of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said in a video on Telegram. He accused Ukraine of "having the aim to cause as much harm as possible to the civilian population because it used cluster munitions".

A journalist was among those killed, according to TASS. The United States has supplied Kyiv with cluster munitions, a move that was criticized even by its allies. Cluster munitions are a controversial weapon designed to disperse or release tiny explosives that can pose a lasting threat even after a conflict ends, in particular for civilians.

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