UAV event in Kherson, Khorly area, Ukraine on Wed 31st December 2025

A Ukrainian drone strike killed 24 people and injured at least 50 more as they celebrated the new year in a Russian-occupied village in Ukraine’s Kherson region, Russian officials said, as tensions between the two countries continue to rise despite diplomats hailing productive peace talks.

Three drones struck a cafe and hotel in the resort town of Khorly on the Black Sea coast, the region’s Moscow-installed leader, Vladimir Saldo, said in a statement on Telegram on Thursday. He said one of the drones was carrying an incendiary mixture that sparked a blaze.

On Thursday evening a Ukrainian military spokesperson told the Interfax Ukraine news agency that Kyiv’s forces exclusively targeted Russian military or energy sites.

The general staff spokesperson did not refer specifically to Russian accounts of a strike on a hotel, but said all strikes by the Ukrainian military were published on a general staff social media page.

“The Defence Forces of Ukraine adhere to the norms of international humanitarian law and strike exclusively at enemy military targets, fuel and energy facilities of the Russian Federation, and other legitimate targets,” Interfax quoted the spokesperson as saying.

A number of Russian officials condemned the attack. The chair of the upper house of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, said it strengthened Russia’s resolve to quickly achieve its goals in its almost four-year invasion of Ukraine.

The strike “once again demonstrates the validity of our initial demands”, Matviyenko said.

The statement follows claims from Moscow that Ukraine had launched a long-range drone attack against one of Vladimir Putin’s official residences in north-western Russia on Tuesday. Kyiv said the claims were a lie.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that its specialists had accessed the navigation system in one of the drones it claimed was used in the attack, and that data extracted confirmed that Putin’s residence was the target.

The ministry did not share evidence of its findings, but officials said it would transfer the data to US officials “through established channels”.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the CIA had determined that no attempted attack had taken place. Donald Trump had initially said he was “very angry” about the purported attack, but he later posted a link on social media to a New York Post editorial describing the Russian claims as “bluster”.

Russia’s defence ministry also released a video of a downed drone it said was involved in the attack.

The night-time clip shows a man in camouflage gear, 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, and neither the video nor its claims could be independently verified.