12/31/2023 8:12 pm (current 12/31/2023 8:20 pm)
Russia intensifies attacks on neighboring country ©APA/AFP
The head of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mykola Oleshchuk, praised the number of deaths caused by his country's anti-aircraft defense in a review of the current year. In total, 85% of the combat drones and cruise missiles that the Russian military used against targets in Ukraine were shot down. On Sunday, Russia again attacked the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian sources. At least 28 people were injured.
Oleschtschuk, however, summed it up positively. Defense against ballistic missiles has also become more effective, Oleshchuk wrote on Telegram on Sunday night, thanks to Patriot systems delivered in early 2023. The information could not be independently verified. “With increasing combat experience and receiving additional weapons from partners, air defense has become stronger every day,” said the head of the Air Force. “We are waiting for more systems capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.”
“The year 2023 is coming to an end, but the war for our freedom, our future and our values is not over,” concluded Oleschtschuk. Fighting a “powerful enemy” is not easy. “We hope for strong support from our allies in 2024, but above all we rely on our own strength.”
On Sunday, six Russian rockets hit the city of Kharkiv, regional governor Oleh Syniehubow said. There were at least 28 injured. Residential buildings, hotels and medical facilities were hit. As Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov announced, there was later a drone attack that hit residential buildings in the city center and started fires.
There were three deaths in a Russian shelling of a village in the region near the border, Syniehubow said. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, 21 of the 49 drones were shot down. Most of the missiles were aimed at the front line and the regions of Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia. A drone attack in the region around the capital Kiev was repelled.
Earlier, an attack by Ukraine on the Russian city of Belgorod claimed many lives. According to Russian reports, the death toll rose to 24. The region's governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported two more deaths on Sunday. More than 100 people were injured in bombings on Friday and Saturday, he wrote on the social network Telegram. On Sunday there was an air alert in the city with around 350 thousand inhabitants, as announced by Gladkow. Residents must go to shelters.
In the war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine since February 2022, the deaths in Belgorod are the worst loss among the Russian civilian population to date. According to Russian military information, Ukraine had bombed the city with combat drones and artillery rockets.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the night attack on Kharkiv was in retaliation for the bombing of Belgorod. Russia targeted “decision centers” and military installations in Kharkiv.
In Moscow, the Defense Ministry also announced that two Ukrainian precision-guided missiles were riddled with cluster munitions. The military said those rockets were shot down by anti-aircraft defense, but their debris containing cluster munitions fell in the city center of Belgorod. This information could not immediately be independently verified. Cluster munitions are smaller explosive devices that are released from a larger projectile and are primarily intended to hit vehicles and people.
There was no official statement from Kiev as of Sunday morning. The news portal “Ukrainskaya Pravda” only wrote, citing an anonymous Ukrainian intelligence source, that the Ukrainian army was targeting Russian military objects. Civilians were injured due to “unprofessional actions of Russian air defense, as well as deliberate and planned provocations.” On Friday, Ukraine reported at least 31 deaths following airstrikes on the country. Defense Minister Rustem Umerov spoke of “the heaviest air strike of this war”.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russian courts had sentenced more than 200 Ukrainian fighters to prison terms since the start of the military operation in Ukraine. “The courts of the Russian Federation have already sentenced more than 200 representatives of Ukrainian armed formations to long prison terms for committing atrocities,” Lavrov said in an interview with the state news agency RIA Novosti.
Russia began its war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and has repeatedly fired at civilian targets far behind the front. Last winter, energy supply facilities, in particular, were targeted by Russian attacks. Experts warn against repeating this tactic this winter. Moscow's objective is to plunge Ukrainians into cold and darkness in order to break the population's will to resist.