Russian Shelling Kills at Least 10 in Christmas Eve Attack on Kherson, Ukraine Says

Russian shelling killed at least 10 people and injured 68 in the southern city of Kherson on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, turning central streets into a grisly scene of shattered glass, burned-out cars and bloodied corpses as the war entered its 11th month.

Mr. Zelensky denounced the attack as targeting civilians, not military facilities. “This is not war according to defined rules,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. “It is terror. It is killing for the sake of intimidation and pleasure.”

Mr. Zelensky posted photos showing cars ablaze and bodies strewn outside a food store. One man lay dead in a pool of blood, his right leg twisted and broken. Another man was slumped in a van peppered by shrapnel, blood covering the street where he appeared to have tried to exit the vehicle before bleeding to death.

Ukrainian officials said that the fire from inaccurate Russian rocket artillery had left 18 people badly injured. Kherson authorities launched an emergency appeal for blood donations.

Ukraine recaptured the southern regional capital last month after a monthslong Russian occupation during which Moscow declared the city part of Russia. Russian forces withdrew to the eastern bank of the Dnipro River and began shelling Kherson from there, hampering Ukraine’s attempts to return a measure of normality to the city.

In recent months, Russia has targeted civilian infrastructure, leaving millions without heat or power, in an apparent attempt to wear down the Ukrainian population and sap support for the war. 

Russia has denied hitting civilians despite evidence that it has, and on Saturday didn’t immediately comment on the strike on Kherson. Reports from Russian state media focused on what Russian defense officials said were rocket attacks on areas of the Donetsk region, which Moscow illegally claimed as its territory in September.

Mr. Zelensky, in a video address late Friday, had called on Ukrainians to be especially vigilant over the Christmas and New Year period, citing a heightened risk of Russian attack. He held a meeting with Ukrainian military leaders on Friday where they discussed responses to threats from Russia, he said in his address.

“We see its intentions, and we will respond,” he said.

At the end of the address, Mr. Zelensky switched to Russian to make a veiled threat. “Citizens of Russia must clearly understand that terror never goes unanswered,” he said.

On Wednesday, Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, said Russian forces would continue to deliver high-precision strikes on Ukraine’s military control system, including energy facilities. He said Moscow’s military campaign would continue until “the tasks are fully completed.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said that Russian military maneuvers in Belarus are part of a Russian campaign to spread fear in Kyiv of imminent attack, but the forces in the neighboring country are insufficient for a fresh assault on the city.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘s visit to Belarus, his country’s closest ally, this week and the recent flurry of joint military activity there led some analysts to speculate that Russia could be planning an attack.

“It’s an element of psychological pressure,” said Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, in an online video posted late Friday. “They want to whip up terror and fear.”

The comments come as the front lines have remained fairly stable after Ukraine recaptured Kherson in November, bringing to around 50% the territory regained since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February.

Ukraine has struck inside Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea in recent months, rattling Russians who were told by the Kremlin in spring that their army would roll into Kyiv with little trouble.

Russia retains its aim of dominating Ukraine, and the Kremlin has said it would increase the size of its army and spend whatever it takes to win the war. Ukraine is expecting Russia to launch an assault early next year, most likely in the east, which Mr. Putin has declared a priority.

Moscow still has designs on Kyiv, Ukrainian officials say, but will require enormous forces after a lightning attack on the capital early in the war was repulsed. Since then, Ukraine has built up its defenses along the border with Belarus.

Russian forces there could be used to test Ukrainian positions or for some kind of provocation, said Mr. Arestovych, the presidential adviser. Their presence might be aimed at distracting Ukrainian attention from an assault elsewhere, he said.

On Saturday, Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko arrived in Moscow ahead of an informal meeting in Russia next week of the heads of members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a group of former Soviet countries, mostly in the Caucasus and Central Asia. They are expected to assess the results of activities among the regional organization this year and discuss plans for further cooperation next year.

The Kremlin has sought to bolster support among partners to offset Western isolation for its war in Ukraine. Minsk is Moscow’s closest ally, and the recent military activity on Belarus’s border with Ukraine and joint exercises between Russian and Belarusian forces have stirred concern that Mr. Putin is moving to formally draw Belarus into the war.

Mr. Lukashenko allowed Moscow to use Belarus as a staging ground to deploy troops to Ukraine at the start of the war. Tens of thousands of Russian troops were stationed there, and Russian warplanes have taken off from Belarusian bases.

The Kremlin has dismissed allegations that Mr. Putin is trying to force Minsk to deploy ground troops to aid Russian forces that have suffered a series of battlefield losses in recent months. But analysts have said that equally important as additional manpower is the use of Belarusian territory, which could allow Moscow to launch an attack on Ukraine’s northern flank as Kyiv is trying to cement its advances toward the east and south.

On Saturday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti that the task of the joint Russian-Belarusian group of forces is to repulse the enemy in the event of a potential invasion of Belarus. He said reports of the potential use of the joint forces as part of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine were incorrect, according to comments published by Russia’s Foreign Ministry.