By AFP and Kontur | 2024-01-02

KYIV -- Russia said it had accidentally bombed a village in its southern Voronezh province near Ukraine on Tuesday (January 2).

The accident occurred the same day that Russia hit Ukraine with a large-scale missile attack.

It is not the first such incident during Moscow's almost two-year-long Ukraine offensive.

"On January 2, 2024, at around 9am Moscow time during a flight of the Aerospace Forces, an abnormal discharge of aircraft ammunition occurred over the village of Petropavlovka in Voronezh province," the Russian army said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies.

"There are no casualties," it added.

Petropavlovka lies some 150km east of the Ukrainian border.

The ministry said six private houses were damaged, Russian news agencies reported.

"An investigation into the circumstances of the incident is under way. A commission is working on the ground to assess the nature of the damage and provide assistance to restoring houses," the statement read.

The governor of Voronezh province, Alexander Gusev, said some of Petropavlovka's residents have been moved to temporary accommodation.

He also said there were no casualties but said there was "destruction recorded in seven households."

In April last year, the Russian army acknowledged that one of its warplanes accidentally dropped a bomb on its own city of Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border, causing a blast.

Deadly strikes

Tuesday's bombardment of Kyiv and northeastern Kharkiv came after Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to step up strikes following an unprecedented Ukrainian attack last Saturday on Belgorod.

Kyiv said Moscow fired 99 missiles but that 72 were downed.

Moscow claimed to have struck only targeted military installations, but Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said Russia is deliberately hitting critical infrastructure and residential neighborhoods.

Firefighters and rescue workers were on the scene in Kyiv, with smoke billowing from one of the buildings.

"It's a residential building. They hit a residential building," said Violetta Solovyova, 56.

Galyna Solovyova, 79, suffered a head wound in the strike but was left without a home.

"It's a real horror to be left without... everything. And we don't know about the neighbors. They're people we know. How are they?" she asked, her head bandaged.

Two people were killed and 49 injured in the capital, said Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko.

National energy company Ukrenergo said 250,000 consumers were without electricity in Kyiv and surrounding areas after the strikes. Temperatures in the region were hovering around 3° Celsius.

Strikes in Kharkiv killed one person and wounded more than 40, as well as damaging multi-story buildings, said the director of Kharkiv province's military administration, Oleg Sinegubov.

The attacks came after Russia Friday launched a wave of strikes across Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, which killed 39 people.

Ukraine responded with missile strikes on Belgorod, which killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens more. Ukrainian strikes on the border Belgorod province killed at least one person Tuesday and wounded five.

Moscow also hit Ukrainian cities on New Year's Eve, with Kyiv saying it had foiled a "record" number of drones launched by Russia.

'Critical we support Ukraine'

"Putin is ringing in 2024 by launching missiles at Kyiv and around the country as millions of Ukrainians take shelter in freezing temps. Loud explosions in Kyiv this morning," US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink wrote on X.

"It's urgent and critical that we support Ukraine now -- to stop Putin here."

Kyiv mayor Klitschko reported multiple explosions and debris from downed missiles hitting the capital as residents were advised to stay in underground shelters.

He said 16 people had been injured in a multi-story block of flats in the Solomiansky district "where a fire broke out as a result of a missile attack."

In the Pechersk district, debris hit the roof of a nine-story building and another multi-story building, the military administration said.

Fires also broke out in a supermarket and a warehouse measuring 2,000 square meters, the mayor said.

In the city's northern Podil district, "the territory of a civilian infrastructure facility is believed to have been hit," Klitschko said.

Some civilian infrastructure and residential buildings in four districts were without power, the mayor said, while a gas pipe had been damaged in one district.

"As soon as the security situation allows it, we will definitely restore electricity to everyone," the city's military administration said.

In the city's Podil district, mains water pipes have been damaged, it added.