As New Yr celebrations gripped the world, blasts have been reported to have rocked Ukraine’s capital metropolis of Kyiv and different components of the war-torn nation lower than an hour into 2023. Nonetheless, there have been no instant experiences of casualties or accidents within the assault which got here shortly after President Volodymyr Zelensky’s New Yr message, wishing victory for his nation within the conflict that’s in its eleventh month endlessly.

Listed here are high 5 factors on the conflict:

1) The assault got here after Russia fired a barrage of over 20 cruise missiles throughout Ukraine on Saturday in what Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets known as “terror on New Yr’s eve”. On Thursday, in one of many greatest wave of strikes seen in current weeks concentrating on nationwide infrastructure, Russia pounded Ukraine with over 120 missiles putting Kyiv, the jap metropolis of Kharkiv, and the western metropolis of Lviv.

2) The most recent assault got here shortly after Zelensky’s handle. “We battle and can proceed to battle. For the sake of the principle phrase: ‘victory’,” he mentioned. “I need to say to all of you: Ukrainians, you’re unbelievable! See what we’ve completed and what we’re doing!” Zelensky added, within the emotional speech.

3) “We battle as one staff — the entire nation, all our areas. I love you all. I need to thank each invincible area of Ukraine,” he continued.

4) With the onset of winter, Russian strikes have been systematically concentrating on power infrastructure in Ukraine, leaving tens of millions within the chilly and darkish in the course of the chilling chilly.

5) In the meantime, in his conventional New Yr’s Eve handle, President Vladimir Putin instructed Russians that “ethical, historic rightness is on our aspect”. Putin mentioned that this 12 months was marked by “really pivotal, fateful occasions” which turned “the frontier that lays the inspiration for our frequent future, for our true independence”.

(With Reuters, AFP inputs)