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49 mins ago
Putin deploys Russian warship with Zircon hypersonic missile across Atlantic, Russian agency TASS says
By Brad Lendon and Anna Chernova
The Russian frigate "Soviet Union Fleet Admiral Gorshkov" armed with hypersonic weapons Zircon (Tsirkon) leaves the naval base in Severomorsk, Russia, in this still image taken from video released on January 4, 2023. (Credit : Russian Defense Ministry/Handout via REUTERS)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent one of his country's most modern warships armed with advanced hypersonic missiles on a long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, Russian state media reported on Wednesday. .
The Admiral Gorshkov frigate left an unidentified northern Russian port on Wednesday after Putin spoke with the ship's commander and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu via video link, according to a report by the Russian news agency. TASS news.
Putin boasted that the ship was carrying Zircon hypersonic missiles, long-range weapons that travel at more than five times the speed of sound and are harder to detect and intercept.
“It has no analogues in any country in the world,” Putin said, according to TASS.
“I am sure that such powerful weapons will reliably protect Russia from possible external threats and help ensure the national interests of our country,” he added.
Russia tested the Zircon system in late 2021, firing from Admiral Gorshkov in the White Sea and hitting a naval target more than 400 kilometers away, according to reports at the time.
The current mission would be their first deployment in a potential combat situation.
“The main efforts during the campaign will focus on countering threats from Russia, maintaining regional peace and stability together with friendly countries,” Shoigu said in the TASS report.
Would it be used in Russia's war in Ukraine?
Russia's war against neighboring Ukraine is now in its 10th month, but that conflict was not specifically mentioned in the TASS report.
It is uncertain if the Zircon missile could be used in this war.
55 mins ago
Russia is focusing its offensive action on eastern Ukraine, say Ukrainian military officials
By Yulia Kesaieva in Kyiv
Russia is focusing its offensive action on the Lyman, Bakhmut and Avdiivka directions in eastern Ukraine, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its situation update on Wednesday.
“He is trying to improve the tactical situation in the Kupyansk direction,” the General Staff added.
"In the Kupyansk and Lyman directions, 15 settlements were shelled from tanks and the full range of artillery," the General Staff said.
Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region and Lyman in the Donetsk region were liberated by Ukrainian forces in late September.
"In the directions of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, areas of more than 30 settlements were shelled," it added.
Ukraine's State Border Guard Service said it had repelled attacks and captured Russian positions in the Bakhmut direction, in an update on Wednesday.
“During the battle, 9 occupants were killed, about 20 more were wounded.
Currently, the Defense Forces have advanced 300 meters and are consolidating their positions," the State Border Guard Service said.
Other affected areas: Meanwhile, in the southern Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, more than 40 settlements were attacked the day before, the General Staff said.
"They do not stop terrorizing the civilian population in the cities and towns along the western bank of the Dnipro river," he added.
CNN cannot verify these battlefield claims.
59 mins ago
More than 60% of the city of Bakhmut is destroyed, says a Ukrainian official
By Yulia Kesaieva in Kyiv
Aerial images show the devastated Ukrainian city of Bakhmut 0:50
More than 60% of Bakhmut is now destroyed as Russian forces try to advance on the city in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, a Ukrainian official said on Wednesday.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region's military administration, said two civilians were killed in the city on Wednesday due to shelling.
"Whatever attempt to enter the city the enemy makes, they fail to advance. Whatever advance they had, they have been pushed back to their previous positions, outside the city limits," Kyrylenko told television. ukrainian.
"Indeed, they are now in the devastated flat area, which also contributes to their huge personnel losses."
IVANIVSKE, UKRAINE - JANUARY 2: Emergency service workers extinguish a fire after shelling on the Bakhmut frontline in Ivanivske, Ukraine as Russia-Ukraine war continues on January 02, 2023 (Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Some background:
Bakhmut is regularly mentioned as the most hotly contested and kinetic part of the 1,300 km front line in Ukraine.
The Russian advance has left the city in ruins, a smoking shell of its former self.
This has polished Bakhmut's power as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance: he still holds out against devastating Russian attacks.
In his historic address to Congress last month, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky devoted six minutes of his 25-minute speech to the situation surrounding Bakhmut.
“Last year, 70,000 people lived here in Bakhmut, in this city,” he said.
“Now there are only a few civilians left.
Every inch of that land is drenched in blood, guns rage every hour...the fight for Bakhmut will change the tragic story of our war for independence and freedom."
Members of the US Congress rose to their feet and applauded four times as Zelensky recounted the fate of the city.
1 hour ago
Ukrainian armed forces say they did not use cellphones to locate Russian troops in Makiivka attack
By CNN's Olga Voitovych and Sarah Dean
Workers remove rubble from a destroyed building that was allegedly a vocational school used as temporary housing for Russian soldiers, dozens of whom were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack, the Russian Defense Ministry earlier stated, in the course of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in Makiivka ( Makeyevka), Russia-controlled Ukraine, January 4, 2023. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko
The Ukrainian armed forces said on Wednesday that the use of cell phones by Russian troops was not the main reason they located their position in Makiivka, leading to a devastating attack in the eastern Donetsk region.
“Of course, using phones with geolocation is a mistake.
But it is clear that this version looks a bit ridiculous," according to the spokesman for the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Serhii Cherevatyi.
The Russian Defense Ministry appeared to blame the soldiers themselves for the Ukrainian attack on Wednesday, saying "the main cause" of the incident was the widespread use of cell phones by Russian soldiers "against the ban," which it allowed Ukraine to "track and determine the coordinates of the soldiers' locations."
Russia also revised its estimate of soldiers killed, from 63 to 89.
Cherevatyi said that “deploying such large batches of newly mobilized people, which means they are not very trained, not very coordinated, in large rooms that are not suitable for shelter in case of danger, is a very weak excuse.
“Of course this is a mistake [by the Russians], and I think that now they are dedicated to [seeking] who is to blame.
They are blaming each other,” he continued.
“It is clear that this [the use of telephones] was not the main reason.
The main reason was that they were unable to covertly deploy these personnel.
And we took advantage of that, detected the target powerfully and destroyed it,” added Cherevatyi.
Four rockets from US-made HIMARS launchers were used in the attack on Makiivka, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
The Ukrainian military has claimed that some 400 Russian soldiers were killed in the attack, but later added that the number was being "clarified".
CNN cannot independently verify any of the figures.
war russia