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On the night of January 1, 2026, according to data from the Ukrainian Air Force, Russian forces deployed 205 attack unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), of which 176 were shot down/suppressed. One of the key damaged objects was a UAV pilot training center in the Progress settlement of the Chernihiv region. The Russian side stated that precisely from this site, fixed-wing drones are launched at Russian territory, and that the strike destroyed between 10 and 15 crews.
At the other end of the country, in western Ukraine, Geran-2 attack UAVs struck the Lutsk oil depot. A column of smoke and fire data recorded by the FIRMS satellite service confirmed the successful hit.
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Special attention was paid to transport logistics. Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Dmytro Kuleba reported a massive attack on the country’s key railway hubs, stretching from the Odesa region and Volyn to Sumy region. As a result of seven strikes, the locomotive depot in Kovel was damaged, a station in Konotop was hit with the destruction of freight cars, and logistical infrastructure in the Odesa region was disrupted, where the continuing threat is hampering restoration work.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that on New Year’s night, energy facilities in the Volyn, Rivne, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv regions were targeted. In the Zaporizhzhia district, according to local authorities, around 4,000 subscribers were left without electricity as a result of the attack.
From the Russian side, the picture of the attacks looked different. The Russian Ministry of Defense reported the destruction of 168 Ukrainian UAVs overnight over various regions: 61 over Bryansk region, 25 over Krasnodar Krai, 24 over the Sea of Azov, 23 over Tula region, 16 over Crimea, 12 over the Moscow region, and 7 over Kaluga region.
At the same time, Ukrainian kamikaze drones reached several targets on Russian territory. The Ilsky oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai, an oil depot in the city of Lyudinovo in Kaluga region, and the Severny Commodity Park — an industrial zone servicing the oil industry — in Almetyevsk (Tatarstan) were attacked.
However, the central event of the night, which caused the most resonant reaction, was the tragedy in the frontline Kherson region (under Russian control). According to Russian sources, a strike by Ukrainian UAVs on a cafe and hotel in the settlement of Khorly during New Year’s celebrations led to the death of 24 people, including a child, and injuries to more than 50. Russian authorities classified the incident as a terrorist act.
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It is reported that the attack was carried out by several drones. According to eyewitnesses, the first explosive-type UAV missed and fell next to the building, which prompted people to go outside and possibly prevented an even greater number of casualties. The second strike was delivered by a munition with submunitions, literally riddling the room and the people inside with small fragments. The third drone carried an incendiary mixture, causing a severe fire in which many were burned beyond recognition. Since the drones could not accurately approach the target from a long distance, they presumably circled the area to strike at midnight, during the broadcast of the Russian president’s New Year’s address.
Russian sources, trying to clarify the composition of those present, deny versions about a large number of high-ranking officials or military personnel. According to their information, among the approximately one hundred people in the establishment were mostly civilians who had booked tables for a New Year’s banquet.
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a harsh statement, accusing the “Kyiv regime” of a “misanthrope neo-Nazi essence” and calling on the international community to condemn the terrorist act. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev compared what happened to the burning of Khatyn, a Belarusian village destroyed by the Nazis in 1943, and the region’s governor, Vladimir Saldo, accused European intelligence services of coordinating the strike. Ukraine has not officially confirmed carrying out this attack, although some Ukrainian unofficial sources wrote that the targets were “collaborators” and Russians.
These events occur against the backdrop of an ongoing information confrontation surrounding another high-profile incident — the attack on the Russian president’s residence several days earlier. The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that as a result of an examination of a Ukrainian UAV shot down on December 29, 2025, in the Novgorod region, a mission file was extracted indicating the object of the president’s residence as the final target. Russia promised to transfer this data to the American side.
However, according to a publication by The Wall Street Journal, American intelligence services, including the CIA, concluded that Ukraine was not targeting Vladimir Putin’s residence. According to their version, the target of the attack was a certain military object in the same region, but at a significant distance from the presidential residence. The international reaction was mixed: US Permanent Representative to NATO Matthew Whitaker called the attack a “reckless act,” while Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko characterized it as “the wildest state-level terrorism.”
An investigation by The New York Times added another layer of complexity to the picture, suggesting that the CIA is coordinating a campaign of strikes on the Russian petrochemical and defense industries, providing intelligence and strategic planning. If such coordination indeed takes place, it raises the question of the possible involvement of American intelligence services in other attacks, including the incident in the Novgorod region, which, however, is officially denied.
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some reporters state the the nato leaders of the ukraines army and actions operate in germany. the statement ” to the last ukrainian ” seems to stand true. the us used negotiations with the north vietnamese extending the vietnam the war six years before defeat. same playbook here ?
war is a business for both sides ( nato countries and russia), otherwise russia would have already ended this war, attacking the maidan staff and destroying the 24 bridges over dniper river and isolating the east part from the west part.
putin has a policy of not wanting the russian public to view the military as a solution.
this policy was also on display in chechnya, where the russians also couldn’t manage any effective action. the whole thing dragged and dragged. troops were never properly armed or supplied, incompetent commanders were rewarded, good ones disappeared, same story as what has been going on in the ukraine since 2014.
the whole take over of the ukraine is run by the americans, yet for some reason the russian media and government pretend this isn’t the case and trump is some kind of great friend of russia.
pretending reality isn’t real is the strangest symptom of putins tenure.