Ukraine updates: Russia ready to evacuate Belgorod residents
Published January 5, 2024last updated January 5, 2024
What you need to know
The Russian city of Belgorod reported another Ukrainian artillery and drone attack overnight, following an attack late in December that Russian officials say killed 24 people and wounded more than 100.
The city, among the largest just across the border to Ukraine, has been facing comparatively frequent shelling and drone attacks. These have intensified in recent weeks as Russia in turn intensified its bombardment of Ukraine.
Ukraine, meanwhile, said it had repelled a number of drones and missiles fired from Russia in the night. It also launched a drone attack on a Russian command post in Crimea.
Ukrainian officials said on Friday that they could not confirm US claims, issued on Thursday, that Russia had used North Korean missiles in its recent large-scale barrages of Ukrainian cities, at least one of them on December 30.
Air force spokesperson Yuriy Ignat told state media that "experts will study the wreckage" from missile strikes, "and then we can say whether this is a fact or not."
Here's a roundup of news related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine on January 5, 2024.
Russia says access to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant blocked for safety
Russia said it has blocked the UN's nuclear watchdog from accessing parts of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant for safety reasons.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials have been on the ground monitoring the plant since September 2022, six months after Moscow's forces captured it.
Renat Karchaa, an official at Russia's Rosatom nuclear agency, alleged that IAEA officials had tried to access "containment shells," and that this had been reckless.
"A containment shell, and especially a sealed one, is not a museum or an area for free walks," Karchaa told Russia's RBC news outlet.
"While in 'sealed' mode, personnel access to the containment shells is prohibited and is only permitted with unambiguous justification and in emergency cases," he added.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said earlier this week that experts had not been allowed into reactor halls in three of the plant's units for two weeks.
He said the IAEA would continue to request access to the reactor halls, where the reactor core and spent fuel are found.
The Zaporizhzhia facility plant stopped supplying electricity to Ukraine's grid in September 2022. It has been rocked by drone attacks and shelling throughout the conflict.
Russia fired North Korean missiles at Ukraine, says Kyiv
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said Russia has hit his country with missiles supplied by North Korea for the first time during the war.
His statement corroborates an earlier assertion from the United States.
"There is no longer any disguise...as part of its outright genocidal war, the Russian Federation for the first time struck at the territory of Ukraine with missiles received from...North Korea," Podolyak wrote on X social media.
"[Russia] is attacking Ukrainians with missiles received from a state where citizens are tortured in concentration camps for having an unregistered radio, talking to a tourist, watching TV shows," Podolyak said.
"Never before in history has the classic 'Axis of Evil' looked so obviously, grotesquely villainous: #Russia — #Iran — #North Korea," he added.
Kyiv claims Iran is supplying Shahed drones for Russia to use against Ukraine.
Podolyak did not provide evidence for the missiles being North Korean. Washington, in a statement on Thursday, had cited declassified intelligence.
Earlier on Friday, the governor of the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv was quoted by state media saying missiles made outside Russia had been fired into the province at the end of December and the beginning of January.
Prosecutors in the region said they are investigating the country of origin of three missiles used to hit the provincial capital on Tuesday in an attack that killed two people and wounded 62.
Russian border city of Belgorod comes under artillery fire
Russian officials reported late-night shelling in the city of Belgorod, some 30 kilometers (roughly 20 miles) from the border to Ukraine.
At least two people were wounded, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
"One man has a shrapnel wound to the forearm, the other has a shrapnel wound to the shin," he said.
Gladkov also said air defenses shot down 10 aerial targets on their approach to the city.
City authorities on Friday advised Belgorod residents to reinforce their windows with tape to protect them from the shelling and to limit the damage and danger if they do break.
"Rescuers of the Belgorod State Emergency Situations Department recommend taping windows with scotch tape," the city hall said. "This is a good way to protect them from the blast wave. The glass will not shatter into small fragments."
Less than a week ago, the city said Ukrainian shelling had killed 25 people in the city, the worst attack on Russian civilians since Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine intensifies drone attacks on Crimea
Russia on Friday reported Ukrainian drone attacks on targets in occupied Crimea.
The Defense Ministry in Moscow said that it repelled a Ukrainian drone attack, destroying and intercepting 36 drones over the annexed peninsula.
Ukraine said the attack targeted a Russian command post near the port of Sevastopol.
Russia reported one person wounded in the attack.
Ukraine reports overnight drone strikes, says it shot most of them down
Ukraine's air force on Friday reported Russian drone attacks across several regions overnight.
It said that Russia launched 31 drones and two missiles, mostly targeting the south of the country, with air defenses destroying 28 of the drones and both missiles.
"As a result of air combat, the Ukrainian Air Force and defense forces destroyed 28 Shahed attack drones in Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Donetsk, Kirovohrad and Khmelnytskyi regions," Ukraine's air force said on the Telegram messaging app.
It said the drones were the small, Iranian-made "Shahed" drones often referred to as "kamikaze" drones as they are designed to fly into a target and detonate.
Ukrainian officials did not report any casualties from the overnight attacks.
msh/sms (AFP, AP, Reuters, DPA)