Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in a ceremony opening objects of transport infrastructure via video link in Moscow, Russia December 22, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday (December 22, 2024) vowed to bring more “destruction” to Ukraine in retaliation for a drone attack on the central Russian city of Kazan a day earlier.

Russia accused Ukraine of a “massive” drone attack that hit a luxury apartment block in the city, some 1,000 km from the frontier.

Videos on Russian social media networks showed drones hitting a high-rise glass building and setting off fireballs, though there were no reported casualties as a result of the strike.

“Whoever, and however much they try to destroy, they will face many times more destruction themselves and will regret what they are trying to do in our country,” Mr. Putin said during a televised government meeting on Sunday.

Mr. Putin was addressing the local leader of Tatarstan, the region where Kazan is located, in a road-opening ceremony via video link.

The strike on Kazan was the latest in a series of escalating aerial attacks in the nearly three-year conflict.

Ukraine has not commented on the strike.

Mr. Putin has previously threatened to target the centre of Kyiv with a hypersonic ballistic missile in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.

And the Defence Ministry has called Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities over recent weeks retaliatory hits for Kyiv using Western-supplied missiles to hit Russian air bases and arms factories.

Advances

The latest threat comes as Russia claimed fresh advances on the battlefield in east Ukraine.

The defence ministry said on Telegram that its troops had “liberated” the villages of Lozova in the northeastern Kharkiv region and Krasnoye — called Sontsivka in Ukraine.

The latter is close to the resource hub of Kurakhove, which Russia has almost encircled and would be a key prize in Moscow’s attempt to capture the entire Donetsk region.

Russia has accelerated its advance across eastern Ukraine in recent months, looking to secure as much territory as possible before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump comes to power in January.

The Republican has promised to bring a swift end to the nearly three-year-long conflict, without proposing any concrete terms for a ceasefire or peace deal.

Moscow’s Army claims to have seized more than 190 Ukrainian settlements this year, with Kyiv struggling to hold the line in the face of manpower and ammunition shortages.

Kyiv on Sunday also accused Russian forces of killing captured Ukrainian soldiers — an alleged war crimes violation.

A video posted by Ukraine’s 110th separate mechanised brigade showed “the shooting of soldiers who surrendered,” Kyiv’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said in a post on Telegram.

He said the video — aerial footage from a drone of an apparent confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers — showed Russians shooting the Ukrainians at point-blank range after they had already surrendered.

AFP could not verify the footage.

It is the latest in a string of similar allegations lodged by Ukraine throughout the nearly three-year conflict.

A view shows a damaged multi-storey residential building following an alleged Ukrainian drone attack in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Kazan, Russia on December 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Kyiv on Saturday (December 21, 2024) staged a major drone attack on the Russian city of Kazan, 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the frontier, the latest in a series of escalating aerial attacks in the nearly three-year conflict.

A drone smashed into a high-rise apartment building in Kazan, a city of more than 1.3 million, damaging a skyscraper but leaving no victims, local officials said.

Also read |Russian forces take control of Kostiantynopolske in eastern Ukraine, Defence Ministry says

Though attacks so far into Russian territory are rare, Kazan and the surrounding oil-rich region of Tatarstan have previously been targeted by Ukrainian drones.

Such strikes are seen as embarrassing for Russia, almost three years into its military offensive on Ukraine.

“Today Kazan suffered a massive drone attack,” Rustam Minnikhanov, the head of Tatarstan, said in a post on Telegram.

“While before industrial enterprises were attacked, now the enemy attacks civilians in the morning,” he added.

Videos on Russian social media networks showed drones hitting high rise buildings and setting off fireballs.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said two drones hit a 37-storey apartment block.

She said Ukraine had been targeting an unspecified industrial facility, but that it suffered no damage.

Ukraine, which has staged regular attacks on targets inside Russia since the start of the full scale military offensive in February 2022, did not immediately comment.

Russian civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia temporarily closed Kazan international airport, one of the country’s busiest.

Some residents were evacuated, but authorities did not provide figures, and all major public events in the area were cancelled as a precaution.

Alongside the two drones that hit the apartment block, three drones were shot down and three were suppressed by air defence systems, Zakharova said.

In a post on Telegram, she said Kyiv was taking out its “anger for tangible military defeats on the peaceful population of Russia.”

Russia’s defence ministry said Saturday that the army had captured a new village near the key city of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces have made major advances in recent months.

The attack on Kazan comes a day after Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv killed one and wounded 13, and after five were killed by a Ukrainian attack on the Russian border region of Kursk, where its troops have been staging an offensive since August.