MOSCOW, January 9. /TASS/. Ukraine is cynically seeking to compensate for its lackluster record on the battlefield by killing civilians through its attacks on Russia’s borderline Belgorod Region, said Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s special envoy for the crimes of the Kiev regime.

He described recent Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and Donetsk around the New Year’s and Orthodox Christmas holidays as a kind of "hybrid substitute for [actual battlefield] victories" and an "outright crime." "They are continuing to convert their lack of victories into the [cold-blooded] killing of children, women and the elderly," Miroshnik said in a broadcast of the Soloviev Live TV show.

"Nowhere is murdering a child seen as a virtue, but Ukraine has been attempting to <…> turn things on their head [to make a vice into a virtue] as they [desperately] attempt to make up for their [abysmal] lack of victories," the Russian diplomat opined.

On December 30, 2023, Ukrainian forces fired two cluster munitions and Czech-made MLRS projectiles on the downtown section of Belgorod, a city of 340,000 people located about 40 kilometers from the Russian-Ukrainian border. The latest figures put the death toll at 25, including five children, with more than 100 people suffering injuries. Over 800 apartments and 132 private homes were damaged in the attack.