While Russia has been increasing its air strikes on Ukraine for several days, to which the Kiev army regularly responds, a Ukrainian general has once again warned of the need for “help from Western countries to replenish the stock of missiles” . A meeting between Ukraine and NATO countries will be held on this subject on Wednesday January 10.
Information to remember:
⇒ Two dead in Russian strikes in Ukraine this Thursday
⇒ NATO/Ukraine meeting next Wednesday on air defense
⇒ Moscow and kyiv exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war
Mobile anti-aircraft defense will only be able to repel “a few” attacks
The Ukrainian mobile anti-aircraft defense has enough ammunition to face “a few” new large-scale Russian strikes, but its stocks can only be replenished with Western help, warns a Ukrainian general. If the Kiev army currently says it has 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: around fifty deaths in Friday’s attack, including 30 in Kiev. , five in that of Tuesday and hundreds of civilians injured.
“In the current situation, with regard to mobile air defense systems, ammunition […] are sufficient to resist the next powerful attacks”, underlines General Serguiï Naïev, the commander of the Ukrainian joint forces, questioned on Wednesday by AFP during a meeting with other soldiers near Kiev.
“But in the medium and long term, we of course need help from Western countries to replenish the stock of missiles,” adds the man who is in charge of the units responsible in particular for defending the skies of the capital. For him, the priority is therefore to “obtain more ammunition” in the face of a Russian army which “really wants to exhaust the anti-aircraft defense system”.
Two dead in Russian strikes in Ukraine
At least two people were killed in Russian bombings in eastern and central Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities announced this Thursday, after several days of massive attacks from Moscow which left dozens dead and injured. .
In the region of Kirovograd (center), relatively far from the front line, a Russian missile attack “on an industrial installation” left one dead and “eight injured” in Kropyvnytskiï, Governor Andriï Raikovych said on Telegram. The day before, Russian attacks killed one person and injured three others in the Donetsk region, the epicenter of current fighting and where Moscow’s forces targeted 11 villages, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry lamented on Telegram on Thursday.
NATO/Ukraine meeting next Wednesday on air defense
The ambassadors of Ukraine and NATO member countries will meet on Wednesday January 10 in Brussels, at the request of kyiv, which is calling for more air defense resources after recent Russian strikes.
This meeting, decided by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, follows “recent Russian missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian civilians,” Alliance spokesperson Dylan White explained on Thursday. NATO countries have already supplied “significant quantities of air defense systems to Ukraine and are committed to further strengthening Ukraine’s defense assets”, he added.
Moldova: arrests of smugglers helping Ukrainians flee the army
Ukraine announced 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. “The criminals were bringing men of military age from the (Ukrainian) region of Odessa to the border with Transnistria,” a pro-Russian separatist territory in Moldova, according to the same source.
Bombing of kyiv on December 29: record death toll rises to 32
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.
“The forensic teams of the General Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior have identified two new victims,” found in the rubble of a warehouse, the head of the Kiev military administration, Serguiï Popko, lamented on Telegram. The 32 people killed in kyiv were all killed in the bombing of a warehouse on the edge of the city center.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko had already estimated on Friday that this strike was the deadliest for the Ukrainian capital “in terms of civilian losses” since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
Moscow and kyiv exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war
Russia and Ukraine announced Wednesday that they had each released more than 230 prisoners of war in their largest such exchange operation in nearly two years of conflict and amid escalating bombing. This is the first exchange of prisoners of war since the summer, the Ukrainian authorities having accused Moscow of blocking negotiations on this subject.
“Following a complex negotiation process, 248 Russian servicemen were repatriated from territory controlled by the Kiev regime,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Telegram. “More than 200 of our soldiers and civilians have returned from Russian captivity,” announced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It is “the largest in terms of the number of (Ukrainian) defenders repatriated,” said the Ukrainian coordination center responsible for prisoners of war.