KYIV: Kyiv said on Sunday it had destroyed 21 of 49 drones fired after Russia vowed to retaliate for the attack on a border city that left 24 dead.
The Ukrainian air force said the drones were particularly targeted at "the front line of defence, as well as at civilian, military and infrastructure facilities in the front-line territories".
Six guided missiles had also targeted the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Kyiv said in a statement on Telegram, without specifying whether they had hit their targets.
Oleg Sinegubov, the head of Kharkiv's military administration, said there had been 28 civilians wounded in the attack on the city, including two teenagers and a foreign citizen.
Residential buildings, offices and cafes were hit in the latest overnight attacks, said Kharkiv mayor Igor Terekhov.
The official death toll has risen to 24 with 108 wounded in Belgorod — just 30 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, which has been repeatedly struck by what Moscow says is indiscriminate shelling.
The two sides took turns to accuse each other of pummelling civilian areas of their shared frontier region over the weekend.
The governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on Sunday that one person had been killed by Ukrainian shelling in a village close to the border.
Moscow said the Belgorod attack had included the use of controversial cluster munitions, and told an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council that Kyiv had targeted a sports centre, an ice rink and a university.
Russian envoy Vasily Nebenzya called it a "deliberate, indiscriminate attack against a civilian target".
Putin gave his traditional New Year's Eve address on Sunday, in which he praised Russia's soldiers on the front line and called for unity in the face of "difficult tasks".
"To all those who are on duty, on the front line of the fight for truth and justice," Putin said, "you are our heroes. Our hearts are with you. We are proud of you, we admire your courage."
The Belgorod attack came a day after Ukraine said a barrage of Russian missile strikes on several cities, including the capital, had killed 39 people.
Schools, a maternity hospital, shopping arcades and blocks of flats were among the buildings hit in Friday's barrage, one of the most violent attacks since the start of the war.
Ukraine was still sifting through the rubble on Saturday when fresh strikes hit the regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Chernigiv, according to local authorities. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
