Missiles rain down on Ukraine as Putin gives combative New Year speech

As Moscow launched a fresh barrage of strikes against Ukraine on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an unusually aggressive, prerecorded address, which was broadcast as Russians in the Far East began their New Year’s celebrations.

This New Year’s message was notably different from previous years — a reflection of the new path the country has taken since Russia’s invasion of

Ukraine this February.

In the address – which is broadcast at midnight on Russian state TV in line with the country’s eleven different time zones — Putin said Russia was fighting in Ukraine to protect its “motherland” and called 2022 “a year of hard, necessary decisions . . . and fateful events” that had laid the foundation of Russia’s future and independence.

Set against a backdrop of Russian military servicemen and women, instead of the typical wintry vista of the Kremlin, Putin’s speech marked a significant shift in tone, combative and nationalistic, instead of festive and celebratory.

In the nine-minute message – the longest New Year’s address in Putin’s two-decade rule — he thanked the Russian army for their “strength of spirit and courage,” before launching into a tirade against the West, which he has repeatedly blamed for provoking the offensive.

“The West lied about peace, but was preparing for aggression . . . they are cynically using Ukraine and its people to weaken and divide Russia,” Putin said. “We have never and will never allow anyone to do this to us.”

As the first footage of the speech was broadcast, dozens of missiles rained down on Kyiv and other regions in Ukraine. Several explosions were heard in Kyiv, and a Washington Post journalist saw from her apartment window what appeared to be a Ukrainian air defense rocket intercepting a Russian missile. It was unclear if the sound of the explosions were from the air defense systems, or missiles hitting targets.

“The terrorist state once again shows its cynicism. Even on New Year’s Eve, it continues to launch massive missile strikes,” Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram. Kuleba said that there were no injuries in this strike, but a number of “civilian objects were damaged by debris,” adding that “Russia fires missiles because it knows that for us it is the New Year, and for them it is the last.”

Saturday’s attack follows a massive strike two days ago, one of the largest airstrikes since the beginning of the invasion — in what is becoming an intensifying battle between Russian missile and Ukrainian air defenses, as Kyiv tries to thwart Moscow’s attempts to destroy the country’s critical infrastructure.

The attacks show that Putin has no intention of letting up his campaign to leave Ukrainians without light, heat and water this winter while Russian advances along the front line in Ukraine’s east and south have ground to a halt.

On Saturday, Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko confirmed that several explosions had rocked the capital, causing extensive damage and one death. Klitschko wrote on Telegram that at least 20 people had been injured, including a Japanese journalist and that 16 had been hospitalized.

Ukraine’s military commander in chief Valery Zaluzhny said Saturday on his official Telegram channel that Ukrainian air defenses had destroyed 12 cruise missiles, out of 20 that Russia fired by Russia from the Caspian Sea region.