The Russian winter maneuvers have actually begun. After the Moscow army fired around 120 rockets into Ukraine on December 29, 2023, the largest wave since the first days of the conflict that began 22 months ago, it repeated on the night of Monday 1st to Tuesday 1st January 2nd, their attacks. This time, according to the Ukrainian authorities, almost a hundred rockets and 35 drones were fired at the cities of Kiev and Kharkiv. About twenty MiG-31 fighters and Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-22 heavy bombers were deployed by the Russians for this attack in particular, the operation of which was more worrying for Ukraine than those of the previous winter.
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These bombings targeted energy infrastructure, temporarily depriving nearly 260,000 people of power in the Kiev region, but also civilian buildings such as residential buildings, businesses and even a church. According to Ukrainian authorities, at least five civilians were killed and 119 others were injured. “The inhuman Russians strike again,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a short speech broadcast on social networks on Tuesday, denouncing a new campaign of “Russian terror” after suffering in the winter of 2022-2023 .
Just over a year ago, Moscow launched its first waves of explosive missiles and drones at Ukrainian targets far behind the front line. For weeks, power plants and substations, district heating networks and telecommunications systems were attacked with the aim of depriving the civilian population of water, electricity or heating. A strategy comparable to a war crime, but which, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was intended to make the conflict unbearable for the Ukrainian people and destroy the unity of the country.
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“Projectile combination”
The ace! Not only had Ukraine's power grid held up, but the country's anti-aircraft defenses had also been strengthened over the months thanks to the delivery of Western systems such as the American Patriot and the Nasams (for Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) Norwegian, the German IRIS- T or the French-Italian SAMP/T. According to the Ukrainian army, 72 of the 99 Russian missiles fired on Monday night were shot down before reaching their target, a “remarkable” intercept rate, according to a French military source. The ten Kinjal hypersonic missiles – flagships of the Russian arsenal – fired in this attack were all destroyed in flight.
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