Ukraine-Russia: Putin ‘boiling with rage’ after Kyiv attack

President Vladimir Putin said he is “boiling with rage” and has vowed to intensify strikes after accusing Ukraine of launching attacks.

Speaking during a New Year’s Day visit to a military hospital, Mr Putin said Ukraine can expect more strikes after shelling of the Russian border city of Belgorod which killed more than two dozen people on Saturday.

“They want to intimidate us and create uncertainty within our country. We will intensify strikes. Not a single crime against our civilian population will go unpunished,” the Russian leader said, describing the barrage of Belgorod as a “terrorist act”.

Russia has blamed Ukraine for Saturday’s attack, which was one of the deadliest to take place on Russian soil since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started more than 22 months ago.

Russian officials in the occupied city of Donetsk also accused Kyiv of shelling the city in the early hours of New Year’s Day, killing four people.

While vowing retribution, he insisted Russia will only target military infrastructure in Ukraine.

“Of course, we can hit public squares in Kyiv and in any other Ukrainian city,” he said.

“I understand – I’m boiling with rage – but do we need to hit civilians? No. We are hitting military targets and that’s what we will keep doing.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the notion that Russia was winning the nearly two-year-old war was only a “feeling” and that Moscow was still suffering heavy battlefield losses.

Zelensky also said there were no real signs that Russia was interested in peace and that any indication that Russia wanted talks signified that Russia was running out of weapons and soldiers.

“I see only the steps of a terrorist country,” he told the Economist.

Zelensky also said that hitting Russian strength in Crimea was critical to reducing attacks on Ukraine as was defending cities in the east of the country.

Russia’s Putin and Ukraine’s Zelensky have delivered contrasting addresses as the warring countries enter another year of conflict.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky honoured his people’s resilience in times of bloodshed in a long and lyrical New Year speech, while Russian leader Vladimir Putin stressed his country’s unity in a short and stern message that made only passing reference to the war.

“The major result of the year, its main achievement: Ukraine has become stronger,” Zelensky said in a televised address.

“No matter how many rockets the enemy launches, no matter how many shellings and attacks – vile, merciless, massive – the enemy carries out in an attempt to break Ukrainians, intimidate, knock Ukraine down, drive it underground, we will still rise,” he said, dressed in his trademark khaki outfit.

Comments by Putin provided a sharp contrast to those of Zelenskiy and also to his own speech last year, when he cast the war as a near-existential fight.

This year, he called Russia’s soldiers “our heroes,” but did not mention Ukraine by name and did not refer to the “special military operation” – his term for the war his invasion unleashed in February 2022.

“We have proven more than once that we can solve the most difficult problems and will never retreat, because there is no force that can divide us,” Putin said in a four-minute speech, dressed in a suit and a red tie against a backdrop of the Kremlin walls.

As the frontline of the war in Ukraine is mired in bloody stalemate, breaking the enemy’s morale via repeated aerial assault is becoming increasingly important.

Ukrainian officials say Moscow launched 90 drones in attacks as the new year began, after days on intensifying strikes.

In his analysis, Askold Krushelnycky writes that Vladimir Putin is likely lashing out in response to a number of high-profile successful strikes by Kyiv.

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Russian courts have sentenced more than 200 Ukrainian fighters to prison terms since Moscow started its military operation in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

In an interview with the state RIA news agency published on Sunday, he said: “The courts of the Russian Federation have already sentenced more than 200 representatives of Ukrainian armed formations to long terms of imprisonment for committing atrocities.”

Both sides accuse each other of committing numerous atrocities in the war that Russia started with a full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022.

Lavrov told RIA that Russia’s main investigative organ, the Investigative Committee, has initiated 4,000 criminal cases against about 900 Ukrainian individuals.

“They include not only members of radical nationalist associations, representatives of Ukrainian security forces and mercenaries, but also representatives of the military and political leadership of Ukraine,” Lavrov said.

Ukrainian President Zelensky said his first call of the New Year was to Canada’s Justin Trudeau today.

Mr Zelensky said the two world leaders discussed security and Russia’s most recent missile and drone attacks on Ukraine.

He wrote on X: “I am also grateful for the reassurance that Canada’s support for Ukraine will continue this year, both in terms of military and financial assistance.”

Speaking during a New Year’s Day visit to a military hospital, Putin said Ukraine could expect more such strikes after shelling of the Russian border city of Belgorod that killed more than two dozen people and wounded more than 100 others.

“They want to intimidate us and create uncertainty within our country. We will intensify strikes. Not a single crime against our civilian population will go unpunished,” the Russian leader said, describing the barrage of Belgorod as a “terrorist act.”

Russia has blamed Ukraine for Saturday’s attack, which was one of the deadliest to take place on Russian soil since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started more than 22 months ago. Russian officials said the death toll stood at 25 as of Monday, including five children.

Ukraine’s shelling of the city of Donetsk on Monday killed four people, a Russian-installed official in the eastern region of Ukraine said, while Russia’s air attacks on several Ukrainian regions killed at least one person, local officials said.

Thirteen people were also injured in “heavy shelling” by Ukrainian forces on the centre of Donetsk, 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.

Separately, a person was killed by shelling in the Russian border region of Belgorod, the local governor said on Telegram.