Ukraine has not commented on an attack on a cafe and hotel that comes despite 'productive' ongoing peace talks.
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 nations continue to spike 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 that one of the drones carried an incendiary mixture, sparking a blaze.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the claim of a strike. The attack could not be independently verified by The Associated Press.
The attack was condemned by a number of Russian officials. Valentina Matviyenko, the chair of Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, said that the strike "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 launched a long-range drone attack against one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's official residences in north-western Russia on Tuesday. Kyiv has denounced the claims as a "lie".
Russia's Ministry of Defence said on Thursday that its specialists had accessed the navigation system in one of the drones it claimed was used in the attack and used its data to confirm that Putin's residence was the drone's final destination. The claim could not be verified as the ministry did not share evidence on the findings, but officials said that it would transfer the data to US officials "through established channels".
On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the CIA had determined that no attempted attack had taken place. Donald Trump had initially said he was "very angry" over 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 showed a man in camouflage, 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.
Kyiv has called the allegations of an attack on Putin's residence a ruse to derail ongoing peace negotiations, which have ramped up in recent weeks on both sides of the Atlantic.
In his New Year's address, Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that a peace deal was "90% ready" but warned that the remaining 10%, believed to include key sticking points such as territory, would "determine the fate of peace, the fate of Ukraine and Europe, how people will live".
Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Wednesday that he, secretary of state Marco Rubio and Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had a "productive call" with the national security advisers of Britain, France, Germany and Ukraine "to discuss advancing the next steps in the European peace process".
"We focused on how to move the discussions forward in a practical way on behalf of (Trump's) peace process, including strengthening security guarantees and developing effective deconfliction mechanisms to help end the war and ensure it does not restart," Witkoff said in a post on X.
Lead Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov also reaffirmed that European and Ukrainian officials plan to meet on Saturday while Zelenskyy is due to hold talks next week with European leaders.