2024-01-04 12:20:40
► The Ukrainian army requests ammunition
Ukrainian mobile air defense has enough ammunition to cope with ” a few “ new large-scale Russian strikes, but its stocks can only be replenished with the help of the West, warns a Ukrainian general.
If the Ukrainian army currently claims to have managed to shoot down most of the missiles and drones launched by Russia, these attacks have increased in recent days and continue to cause numerous victims.
For General Serguii Naev, the commander of the Ukrainian joint forces, the priority is to“get more ammo” facing a Russian army which “really wants to exhaust the air defense system”.
► Smugglers helping Ukrainians escape conscription arrested in Moldova
Ukraine announced Thursday the arrest in Moldova of smugglers helping Ukrainians, called up, to flee their country, in the midst of a debate on the need to strengthen the ranks of the army to fight the Russian army. Ukrainian police said on Telegram that it was a joint operation with Moldovan law enforcement.
The two Moldovan smugglers were arrested while transporting four military conscription resisters to Ukraine. “Criminals were bringing men of military age from the (Ukrainian) Odessa region to the border with Transdniestria”a pro-Russian separatist territory in Moldova, according to the same source.
“From there, they led them along forest trails avoiding checkpoints (…) and took their clients to the capital of Moldova”continues the Ukrainian police, who say that the smugglers paid between 4,500 and 5,000 dollars (4,100 to 4,500 €) for their services.
► Russia seeks to exhaust Ukraine
The recent massive Russian strikes against major Ukrainian cities aim, according to experts, to exhaust the population and the anti-aircraft defense of Ukraine, which has once again requested more weapons from its Western allies.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia fired nearly 300 missiles and more than 200 Shahed explosive drones, in two attacks, on December 29 and on the night of January 1 to 2, which caused the deaths of around fifty people. people.
In just a few days between December 29th and now, Russia has used about 300 missiles and over 200 “Shahed” drones against Ukraine.
Prior to Ukraine, no country in the world had ever successfully repulsed such combined attacks with the use of drones and missiles, including… pic.twitter.com/a7znn4GoDE
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Volodymyr Zelensky (@ZelenskyyUa) January 2, 2024
One of the Kremlin’s primary objectives, explains Mick Ryan, associate researcher at CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), is to « tester » Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense, which has increased in power thanks to the American Patriot system, or its Franco-Italian equivalent SAMP/T Mamba.
► Assessment revised upwards for the bombing of kyiv
The death toll from a Russian strike in kyiv on December 29 reached 32 dead on Thursday, according to the Ukrainian authorities, who already judged last week that this bombing was the deadliest for the capital in two years of war. The previous count, announced the day before after the death of an injured person, was 30 dead.
“Forensic teams from the General Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior have identified two new victims” found in the rubble of a warehouse, lamented the head of the kyiv military administration, Serguii Popko.
The 32 people killed in kyiv were all killed in the bombing of a warehouse on the edge of the city center. Russia, for its part, claims, as usual, to have only destroyed legitimate targets such as barracks, military warehouses or arms factories.
In retaliation, the Ukrainians attacked the Russian town of Belgorod, near the border, on Saturday, killing 25 people. Moscow responded on Tuesday by launching around a hundred missiles against Ukraine, killing five people.
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