Explosions rattled villages and cities across Ukraine on Thursday in what the government has said was one of Russia's largest missile barrages since the war began.
"Russian terrorists have been saving one of the most massive missile attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion for the last days of the year," Ukraine's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Twitter. "They dream that Ukrainians will celebrate the New Year in darkness and cold. But they cannot defeat the Ukrainian people."
According to preliminary data, Ukraine's Air Force said that Russian forces had launched 69 cruise missiles and that it had downed 54 of those, along with Ukraine's Defense Forces. The Air Force said that it had also repelled attacks from Iranian-made Shahed drones, which are designed to explode on contact with their targets.
Earlier on Thursday, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a post on Twitter that Russia had launched more than 120 missiles in the attack, without giving more details. He said the focus of the onslaught was to "destroy critical infrastructure and kill civilians en masse."