Russia has fired Grad rockets and cannons at a residential area in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut On Thursday, three men and two women were killed and nine others injured, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said. Blurred images of the victims were shared on Telegram by prosecutors, who said the attack was being investigated as a war crime. “Criminal proceedings have been initiated.”
Russia fired a total of 36 air and sea-launched cruise missiles, air-to-surface guided missiles and anti-ship missiles at Ukraine overnight in Thursday, according to Ukrainian officials. At least 16 missiles were shot down by Ukrainian forces, the Air Force said. Among them, air defenses in the south shot down eight Kalibr missiles launched from a ship in the Black Sea, officials said.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ruled out giving up Ukrainian territory in a possible peace deal with Russia. In an interview with the BBC, Ukraine’s leader said giving up land would mean Russia could “keep coming back”. Zelenskyy said a predicted spring offensive had already begun, but he believed his country’s armed forces could resist Russia’s advance until they were able to launch a counteroffensive.
The head of the Russian Wagner mercenary group predicts that Bachmut will fall in a few months. In an interview with a pro-war military blogger, Yevgeny Prigozhin predicted that Bakhmut would be seized in March or April, depending on how many soldiers Ukraine committed to its defense and how well-supplied his own troops are.
Russia’s night bombardment didn’t have much of an impact on power, This was announced by the Minister of Energy of Ukraine. German Galushchenko said that Ukraine satisfied consumer demand for the fifth consecutive day. National grid operator Ukrenergo said it sees no need to introduce emergency blackouts to preserve supplies.
Critical infrastructure was damaged in Russian attacks on the Lviv region of western Ukraine. The head of the regional state administration Maksym Kozytskyi reported on Telegram, adding that there were no casualties.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukraine had deported 101 prisoners of war to Russia After talks, state media reported. Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said 100 soldiers and one civilian had been returned to Ukraine. Almost all defended the southern city of Mariupol before it fell to Russian forces, he said.
Russia has “definitely changed tactics” by using decoy missiles without explosive warheads and deploying balloons to fool Ukraine’s air defenses, according to a senior Ukrainian official. The aim of the decoy missiles is to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defense systems by offering too many targets, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told the Associated Press.
Russian deployment rates have risen over the past week after several weeks of quieter activity, This was announced by the British Ministry of Defense. Air activity is “now about the average daily rate since the summer of 2022,” according to its latest intelligence update.
Russia “continues to push large numbers of troops” onto the battlefield in Ukrainesaid US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. These troops are “ill-equipped and poorly trained,” and as a result, Russian forces have “taken many casualties and we expect this will continue,” he told reporters in Estonia.
According to General Mark Milley, neither Russia nor Ukraine will achieve their military goals, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. In an interview with the Financial Times, Milley said he believed the war would end at the negotiating table. The Pentagon is reassessing its weapons inventories and may need to increase military spending after seeing how rapidly ammunition was being used in Ukraine during the war, he added.
Belarus will fight alongside ally Russia if another country launches an attack against it. President Alexander Lukashenko said so, adding that he plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
British Labor Party leader Keir Starmer has traveled to Kiev to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Starmer said Britain’s position on Ukraine “will remain the same” should there be a change of government next year as he traveled Thursday to the suburbs of Irpin and Bucha, where Russia committed atrocities last year when they were pushed back by Ukrainian forces became .
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen arrived in Kiev on Thursday to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the first public visit by a senior Israeli official to the Ukrainian capital since last year’s Russian invasion. During a joint briefing with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, Cohen said Israel will support a Ukrainian peace initiative at the United Nations and help secure up to $200 million for health and infrastructure projects.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it was expelling four Austrian diplomats after taking Vienna “an unkind and unjustified step”. The move came after Austria announced this month that it would expel four Russian diplomats for behaving in breach of international agreements, a reason often cited in espionage.
The UN General Assembly will vote on a draft resolution next week He stressed “the need to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace” in Ukraine as soon as possible. Ukraine and its supporters hope to deepen Russia’s diplomatic isolation by seeking a yes vote from nearly three-quarters of the General Assembly.