Ukrainian drone attack killed 24 people and injured at least 50 more in an occupied village in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region on December 31, Russian authorities said on Thursday, accusing Kyiv of deliberately targeting civilians.
Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of the occupied Kherson region, reported that overnight drone strikes hit a hotel and a restaurant in the Black Sea resort town of Khorly, causing a fire while people were gathered for a celebration. He did not name the specific locations but said that those killed included a child. Saldo later shared images from the aftermath showing a severely damaged building at the site of the strike.
Russia’s Investigative Committee announced it had opened a criminal case into the incident, describing it as a terrorist attack.
Ukrainian authorities had not commented at the time of reporting. However, a Ukrainian military official told local media that Ukrainian troops target exclusively military or energy targets. “The Defence Forces of Ukraine adhere to the norms of international humanitarian law and strike exclusively at enemy military targets, fuel and energy facilities of the Russian Federation, and other legitimate targets,” Interfax quoted the spokesperson of the General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces as saying. The military official did not mention the strike on a café and hotel in Khorly town.
Several Russian officials denounced the attack. Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of Russia’s upper chamber of parliament, said it reinforced Moscow’s determination to rapidly fulfill its objectives in the nearly four-year war in Ukraine.
She said the strike “once again confirms that our original demands were justified.”
Her remarks came after Russian authorities alleged that Ukraine had carried out a long-range drone strike on one of President Vladimir Putin’s official residences in northwestern Russia on Tuesday. Ukrainian officials dismissed the allegation as false.
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