Ukrainian and Russian officials are both reporting deaths in separate attacks early in the new year.
Ukraine’s shelling of the city of Donetsk on Monday killed four people, according to a Russian-installed official in the eastern region of Ukraine, while Russia’s air attacks killed a teenage boy in Odesa, according to local officials.
Ukraine’s “heavy shelling” on the center of Donetsk also injured 13, Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk region, wrote on the Telegram messaging app. In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the shelling of Donetsk a “terrorist act” that it said was aimed at civilian infrastructure. Russian state media reported that a journalist was among the victims, but provided no further details.
Russian officials said another person was killed in a separate attack in the Russian border region of Belgorod, and another in a shelling on the Russian border town of Shebekino.
On the Ukrainian side, a 15-year-old boy was killed and seven other people wounded after falling debris from a drone that was shot down hit a residential building in the city of Odesa, according to Oleh Kiper, the region’s governor.
WATCH |Aerial attacks intensify in Russia-Ukraine war:
Air attacks between Russia and Ukraine have intensified in recent weeks, with increased missile and drone strikes by Russia and Ukraine hitting the Russian city of Belgorod.
A social media video, posted by Odesa Mayor Henadii Trukhanov, showed him inspecting a damaged apartment building with broken windows.
“They say that how you welcome the New Year is how you will live the year,” Trukhanov said in a post.
“Well, this year Ukraine will break this rule: we will persevere and we will win.”
Heavy aerial bombardments
Russian attacks also severely damaged a museum in the western city of Lviv dedicated to Roman Shukhevych, who was a controversial Ukrainian nationalist and military leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the Second World War.
Writing on social media, Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi described the strike as “symbolic and cynical,” adding, “this is a war for our history.”
The attacks follow a series of heavy aerial bombardments that began on Friday, when Russia unleashed an 18-hour attack that one air force official described as the biggest aerial barrage of the war. At least 49 people were killed in the bombardment, with rescuers in Kyiv reporting Monday that they had recovered at least eight more bodies from underneath the rubble.
Shelling blamed on Ukraine in the centre of Belgorod on Saturday killed 21 people, including three children, local officials reported.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that started with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.