1 dead, several wounded after Russian strike on Odesa

Local officials in Odesa on Jan. 1 reported one dead and several wounded after Russia struck the southern port city with UAVs on New Year's Eve.

Authorities said wreckage from downed drones hit buildings throughout the city of Odesa, causing fires in several residential areas.

Russia has stepped up airstrikes as the world celebrates the New Year holiday, in what Moscow claims is retaliation for a deadly attack in the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine.

Earlier on Dec. 30 in Kharkiv, residential homes, a landmark hotel, and hospitals were damaged in Russian airstrikes on Dec. 30, according to local official Oleh Syniehubov.

President Volodymyr Zelensky at midnight on Dec. 31 delivered his traditional new year's address on television, thanking Ukrainian troops and civil society for the immense sacrifices made in the ongoing struggle against Russia.

On Dec. 31, Russian leader Vladimir Putin did not mention Ukraine by name in his short and muted New Year address.

Ukraine refutes claim Russia killed its intelligence officers in Kharkiv attack

The Russian Defense Ministry’s claim that it killed Ukrainian intelligence officers in the Dec. 30 attack on Kharkiv is “the latest nonsense from the aggressor state,” the spokesperson of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said.

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk