Waves of Russian drones target Ukraine infrastructure, cause power outages

Ukraine said on Monday it had shot down all Russian drones in a new wave of attacks, after Moscow launched an unprecedented third straight day of airstrikes against civilian targets.

Russian officials, meanwhile, were reeling from reports that large numbers of Russian troops had been killed in a strike on a dormitory where they were being housed in occupied Ukraine alongside an ammunition dump.

Russia has carried out nightly attacks in recent days on Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, hundreds of kilometres from the front lines. That marks a change in tactics after months in which Moscow usually spaced such strikes around a week apart.

After firing dozens of missiles on Saturday, Russia launched dozens of Iranian-made Shahed drones on Sunday and Monday. But Kyiv said on Monday it had shot down all 39 drones in the latest wave, including 22 shot down over the capital.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the latest strikes had knocked out some power and heating.

"There are emergency power outages in the city," he said on the Telegram messaging app.

Earlier, he said one person was wounded by debris from a destroyed drone that hit a road and damaged a building in a northeastern district of the capital.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the information.

Ukraine's air defence systems worked through the night to bring down incoming drones and to warn communities of the approaching danger.

"It is loud in the region and in the capital: night drone attacks," Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said.

'Air defence is at work'

"Russians launched several waves of Shahed drones. Targeting critical infrastructure facilities. Air defence is at work," he said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia, which has seized and claims to have annexed around a fifth of Ukraine, has turned to mass airstrikes against Ukrainian cities since suffering defeats on the battlefield in the second half of 2022.

It says its attacks, which have knocked out heat and power to millions in winter, aim to reduce Kyiv's ability to fight. Ukraine says the attacks have no military purpose and are intended to hurt civilians, a war crime.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Russia is planning a protracted campaign of attacks with Iranian drones to "exhaust" Ukraine.

"We have information that Russia is planning a protracted attack using Shahed drones," he said in his nightly video address. "It is probably banking on exhaustion. Exhausting our people, our anti-aircraft defences, our energy."

Ukraine, he said, had to "act and do everything so that the terrorists' fail in their aim, as all their others have failed."

Ammunition dump exploded

Russia acknowledged on Monday that scores of its troops were killed in one of the war's deadliest strikes.

Russia's Defence Ministry said 63 Russian service members had been killed in a missile strike on their temporary accommodation in the Russian-held town of Makiivka, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Earlier, Ukraine's Defence Ministry said as many as 400 Russians had been killed.

Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine and Zelenskyy did not address the Makiivka strike in his nightly speech on Monday.

Daniil Bezsonov, a senior Russian-backed regional official in the Moscow-controlled parts of the Donetsk region, said the former vocational college had been hit by U.S.-made HIMARS rockets at around midnight, as people in the region would have been celebrating the start of the New Year.

Russian military bloggers said ammunition stored close to the facility had exploded in the attack and contributed to the high number of casualties.

Expressing anger at the losses, Bezsonov called for the punishment of military officers who ordered a large number of troops to be stationed at the facility.

'Very tough now' 

Ukrainian troops saw in the New Year on the front line in the eastern province of Donetsk. One soldier, Pavlo Pryzhehodskiy, 27, played a song he had written on a guitar after 12 of his comrades were killed in a single night.

"It is sad that instead of meeting friends, celebrating and giving gifts to one another, people were forced to seek shelter, some were killed" during the New Year holiday, he told Reuters.

"It is a huge tragedy that cannot ever be forgiven."

In a nearby trench, soldier Oleh Zahrodskiy, 49, said he had volunteered after his son was called up as a reservist. Now, his son is in hospital, fighting for his life with a brain injury, while his father mans the front.

"It is very tough now," he said, holding back tears.

Russia has flattened Ukrainian cities and killed thousands of civilians since Putin ordered his invasion last February, saying Ukraine was an artificial state whose pro-Western outlook threatened Russia's security.

Ukraine has fought back with Western military support, driving Russian forces from more than half the territory they seized. In recent weeks, the front lines have been largely static, with thousands of soldiers dying in intense warfare.

In a stern New Year's Eve message filmed in front of a group of people dressed in military uniform, Putin vowed no letup in his war.

"The main thing is the fate of Russia," Putin said. "Defence of the fatherland is our sacred duty to our ancestors and descendants. Moral, historical righteousness is on our side."