(Picture:east2west news)
A drone strike has killed 24 people and injured at least 50 more as they celebrated the new year in an occupied village in Ukraine, Russian officials have claimed.
The burned-out remains of a hotel resort and cafe are all that is left after three Ukrainian drones struck overnight in Khorly on the Black Sea coast.
Bodies were seen lying under blankets with pools of blood on the floor of the ruined hotel where hours before people were celebrating the arrival of 2026.
Kherson’s Moscow-installed leader Vladimir Saldo said that one of the drones carried an incendiary mixture, sparking the inferno.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the claim of a strike.
The strike came after Ukraine and Russia held reportedly ‘productive’ peace talks, but now the attack has strengthened Russian resolve to take more Ukrainian territory.
Valentina Matviyenko, chairwoman of Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, said the strike ‘once again demonstrates the validity of our initial demands.’
Russia attacked the Odesa region overnight, targeting civilian infrastructure in several waves of drone attacks, according to regional head Oleh Kiper.
In a post on Telegram, he said a two-storey residential building was damaged and a drone hit an apartment on the 17th floor of a high-rise building without detonating. There were no casualties reported.
Thursday’s developments follow claims from Moscow that Ukraine launched a long-range drone attack against one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official residences in north-western Russia on Tuesday. Kyiv has denounced the claims as a ‘lie’.
Russia’s defence ministry released a video on Wednesday of a downed drone it said was involved in the attack.
The nighttime clip showed a man in camouflage, a helmet and a Kevlar vest standing near a damaged drone lying in snow. The man, his face covered, talks about the drone. Neither the man nor the defence ministry provided any location or date.
Kyiv has called the allegations of an attack on Mr Putin’s residence a ruse to derail ongoing peace negotiations, which have ramped up in recent weeks on both sides of the Atlantic.
It has since emerged Ukraine faked the assassination of the leader of the right-wing Russian Volunteer Corps – a group fighting the overthrow of Vladimir Putin – for which the Kremlin had allocated a $500,000 bounty.
Denis Kapustin, also known by his pseudonym ‘White Rex,’ is alive, despite confirmation from the Ukrainian Armed Forces last week that he was killed by an FPV drone in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
‘We will definitely avenge you, Denis. Your legacy lives on,’ the RVC group wrote on Telegram last, adding that it would provide further details about his death in due course.
But the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (GUR) today confirmed that this was part of a special operation to save Kapustin’s life – and in the process earn $500,000.
