Kyiv claims to have conducted a “high-precision strike” on a command center in Russia’s western Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces continue to hold a sliver of territory near the border.
“Today the Armed Forces of Ukraine conducted a precision strike in Maryino, Kursk region, against the command post of the Russian armed forces,” Kyiv’s military said on the evening of Jan. 2.
Without specifying what kind of weapons were used in the attack, Ukraine’s military went on to assert that “all necessary measures have been taken to minimize the risk to civilians” in Kursk.
A separate Telegram post included an image purportedly showing the heavily damaged Russian command center.
Moscow, meanwhile, has yet to confirm the alleged strike on the Russian command post, which The Epoch Times could not independently verify.
On the same day, however, Alexander Khinshtein, Kursk’s acting governor, acknowledged that Ukrainian forces had launched several missiles at the village of Ivanovskoye in Kursk’s Rylsky district.
Writing on Telegram, Khinshtein claimed that only “civilian targets” were hit, including a school and a shopping center, and that no casualties—civilian or otherwise—had been reported as a result of the strike.
For the past five months, Ukrainian forces have held a sliver of territory in Kursk after staging an August cross-border offensive into the Russian border region.
Drones Over Kyiv
Meanwhile, in the early hours of Jan. 3, Russia carried out a fresh wave of drone strikes on multiple targets in and around Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.Mykola Kalashnyk, acting governor of the Kyiv region, said a truck driver was killed by falling drone debris.
He added that several homes near the capital were also damaged, leaving at least four people injured.
According to Kyiv’s air force, 60 out of 93 incoming drones were downed by Ukrainian air defenses, while 26 others were effectively neutralized by electronic jamming systems.
In addition to Kyiv, eight other regions across Ukraine were targeted in the overnight drone attack, the air force said.
As of publication time, Moscow had yet to acknowledge the reported attack.
But if confirmed, the wide-ranging drone barrage would be the second of its kind since the start of the New Year.
On Jan. 1, Russia fired scores of drones at targets across the Kyiv region, more than 100 of which were successfully intercepted, according to Ukraine’s military.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said that two people were killed in the New Year’s attack when their building in central Kyiv was struck by a Russian drone.
Russia’s defense ministry later confirmed the barrage, saying its forces had struck military targets and energy infrastructure in several parts of Ukraine, including the capital.
In its daily briefing for Jan. 2, the ministry said that missiles, artillery, and military aircraft—both manned and unmanned—had been employed against designated targets.
In 2022, Russia invaded and effectively annexed broad swathes of territory in eastern and southeastern Ukraine.
Since then, Russia has carried out frequent attacks on Ukrainian military targets and infrastructure located far behind the roughly 1,000-mile-long frontline.
Russia claims that it uses precision weapons to avoid killing civilians and that all strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure serve a purely military function.
According to Kyiv and its Western allies, Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure—especially Ukrainian energy facilities—constitute war crimes.
