War in Ukraine: Zelenskyj wants to make Ukrainian air defense a security guarantee for Europe
Created: 12/31/2022 5:02 am
By: Sandra Kathe, Caspar Felix Hoffmann, Karolin Schäfer, Christian Stör
Attacks on Kharkiv result in deaths and injuries.
Russia could soon increase its troop strength again.
The news ticker.
New wave of mobilization:
Ukrainian secret service expects to start in a few days
Since the beginning of the war:
700 hours of air alert in Kiev
Editor's note:
Read the latest developments from the Ukraine conflict in our new ticker.
The information on the Ukraine war processed here comes partly from the warring parties in Russia and Ukraine.
They can therefore not be independently checked in part.
+++11.00 p.m .:
According to the Ukrainian volunteer regiment KRAKEN, the Ukrainian troops succeeded in liberating the village of Novoselivske in the Luhansk region on Thursday.
The news portal
Ukrainska Pravda
reports on Thursday evening.
As the group reported on Telegram, several Russian occupiers are in captivity, while others have been forced to withdraw.
Russian losses in personnel and equipment are also a consequence of the liberation action.
+++ 9.45 p.m .:
As a result of the ongoing Russian missile attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has announced that he will expand the air defenses of the Ukrainian troops and possibly make them the strongest air defenses in all of Europe.
"In the new year, the Ukrainian air defense will be even stronger, even more effective," Zelenskyy said in his daily video address on Friday evening.
"This will be a security guarantee not only for our country but for the entire continent."
In the past few days, the Ukrainian defense forces have repeatedly shot down the majority of Russian drones and missiles with the equipment they currently have.
However, given the mass of incoming projectiles, the soldiers had not always been able to repel all attacks.
The announced US Patriot systems, for which numerous Ukrainian soldiers are currently being trained abroad, should compensate for this.
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy announced further expansion of Ukrainian air defenses for 2023.
© Handouts/AFP
War in Ukraine: Military intelligence expects a new wave of Russian mobilization in January
+++ 8:05 p.m .:
Ukrainian secret services expect that Russia will start mobilizing new recruits again on January 5 in order to replenish the severely decimated troops deployed at the front.
This is reported by the online medium
Ukrainska Pravda
, citing the head of the Ukrainian military intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov.
In an interview with the British broadcaster
BBC
, he said that preparations for the new wave of mobilization, which is due to start around January 5, are already underway.
Pictures of the Ukraine war: great horror and small moments of happiness
View photo gallery
After the last wave of mobilization in autumn, the Russian ruler Vladimir Putin announced that he would no longer recruit any more soldiers for his troops, but speculation about a possible new mobilization has been going on for weeks.
Budanov said that since the end of mobilization announced in the fall, more military forces have been drafted.
Nevertheless, the Russian invasion troops "already lack the manpower".
Terrifying record in the Ukraine war: Almost 30 days of air alert in Kyiv
+++ 6.50 p.m .:
Since the start of the Ukraine war, air alarm sirens have warned the population of 638 impending attacks for around 700 hours – the equivalent of almost 29 days – in the country’s capital.
According to a report by the
Kyiv Independent
, this was reported on Friday by the responsible military general Serhiy Popko.
According to Popko, 2022 was the “most terrible year” in the history of Kiev as the capital of independent Ukraine.
During that time, Russian troops carried out a total of 52 airstrikes on Kyiv, damaging 600 buildings.
120 people, including five children, were killed and 495 others injured.
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+++ 4.40 p.m .:
Russian forces attacked several areas in Kharkiv Oblast on Friday.
"Kupyansk district is again under attack by the invaders," Oleh Synyehubov, the region's governor, told Telegram.
At around 11:30 a.m., a 50-year-old man was killed in a Russian attack on the settlement of Katerynivka.
Another attack reached Kupyansk at noon.
One person was injured, according to Synyehubov.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, also confirmed the attack on the Kharkiv region.
According to him, two people were killed and two others injured in Katerynivka.
News about the Ukraine war: Russia apparently cannot keep up with weapons production
+++ 3:22 p.m .:
A spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force rejects Moscow’s claim that Russia’s missiles would never run out in the Ukraine war.
International sanctions will prevent the federation from producing endless shipments of cruise missiles,
spokesman Yuriy Ihnat was quoted as saying by
The Kyiv Independent .
Russian missiles would be fired directly at Ukraine as soon as they came off production.
However, production cannot keep up with the pace of consumption.
The Russian Defense Ministry had previously responded to a Western assessment of the remaining stock.
According to the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the war is severely tugging at Russian stocks of precision missiles.
News about the Ukraine war: Thousands of soldiers and civilians missing
+++ 1.30 p.m .:
According to Presidential Advisor Alona Verbytska, thousands of soldiers and civilians are missing in Ukraine.
Russia has currently confirmed 3,392 Ukrainian prisoners of war, including civilians, she told the
editorial network Germany
.
"But in Ukraine, 15,000 people are currently missing, including many civilians." The fate of these people is completely uncertain, Verbytska said.
It is unclear what happened to them: "Are they also in Russian captivity, were they abducted from Russian-occupied areas or were they possibly killed long ago?"
News about the Ukraine war: Belarus speaks of a possible provocation by Kiev after finding a rocket
+++ 12.00 p.m .:
After finding an anti-aircraft missile on Belarusian territory, the Ministry of Defense in Minsk spoke of a possible provocation by Kiev.
"Either the unguided anti-aircraft missile was fired unintentionally because of the crew's poor training, or the missile was defective, or it is a deliberate provocation by the Ukrainian armed forces," said Belarusian anti-aircraft defense chief Kirill Kazantsev in a news channel Telegram Ministry statement.
Kyiv, for its part, has declared its readiness to cooperate in clarifying the incident.
News about the Ukraine war: Russia is preparing for a decisive battle
+++ 10.40 a.m .:
According to British information, a Russian troop formation in a contested area in eastern Ukraine will probably have a new leadership again.
Lieutenant-General Yevgeny Nikiforov is likely to be in the process of assuming command of Russia's Western Forces Group (WGF), the UK MoD wrote in its regular intelligence update.
He would therefore be at least the fourth commander at the head of the association since the beginning of the Ukraine war.
According to British assessments, the WGF is almost certainly tasked with holding Russia's right flank in the area around the cities of Kreminna and Swatove.
The Ukrainian military reported progress near Kreminna on Thursday (December 29).
An American think tank had previously announced that the Russian army was gathering troops in the Luhansk region and preparing for a decisive battle.
+++ Update from Friday, December 30, 6:30 a.m.:
As reported by Russian media, residents near the military airfield for strategic bombers in Engels in Russia saw the Russian air defense system in action on Thursday morning (December 29) and heard explosions .
The governor of Russia's Saratov Oblast, Roman Busargin, said anti-aircraft defenses destroyed an "unknown object".
Russia is actively using the base in Engels, some 730 kilometers southeast of Moscow and hundreds of kilometers from Ukraine, for attacks on Ukraine with cruise missile-carrying bombers.
The Ukrainian authorities have not yet commented on the matter.
Ukraine war: Kiev's mayor Klitschko reports about injuries
Update from Thursday, December 29, 12:30 p.m .:
According to military information from Kiev, Russia is again covering Ukraine with large rocket attacks.
Air alerts went off across the country in the morning.
Several heavy explosions could also be heard in the center of the capital Kiev, as a reporter from the
German Press Agency
reported on site.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one house was hit.
Two people were rescued and taken to the hospital.
A total of three people were injured in the attacks, including a 14-year-old girl, he said.
News about the Ukraine war: Russia attacks with more than 120 missiles
First report from Thursday, December 29:
Kiev/Frankfurt – According to the government in Kiev, Russia attacked Ukraine nationwide on Thursday (December 29) with more than 120 rockets.
They were shot down by the "evil Russian world" in order to destroy important infrastructure and kill masses of civilians, wrote the adviser in the presidential office, Mykhailo Podoliak, on Twitter.
There had previously been heavy explosions in the capital Kyiv and other cities.
Air alerts went off across the country.
These were the heaviest missile attacks since December 16, when Russia launched massive aerial bombardments and warships in the Black Sea.
It was the tenth such wave since October.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been warning of the threat of new attacks for days.
News about the Ukraine war: People seek protection from air raids
Advisor to the Ukrainian presidential office, Oleksiy Arestovych, urged people to urgently seek protection.
And he warned against posting images of the explosions and impacts on social media, as this would allow conclusions to be drawn about the work of the Ukrainian air defense and could reveal their position.
"When you do that, you correct the enemy's fire."
In recent weeks, the Russian military has repeatedly attacked Ukraine's energy supply network with cruise missiles, rockets and so-called kamikaze drones.
Despite the high number of Ukrainian air defenses shot down, the attacks caused major damage, resulting in massive power and water supply failures.
Russia wants to put the Ukrainian population under pressure in winter.
(cas/ska with dpa/AFP)