by Bernhard at Moon of Alabama
On the 29th of December Russia fired swarms of drones and missiles against Ukrainian weapon factories and depots.
Ukraine responded on new year’s eve with a missile attack against the Russian city of Belgorod. The attack led to a number of civilian casualties.
Russia responded with attacks on Kharkiv where a hotel frequently used by western personnel was destroyed.
On new year’s eve Ukraine also fired missiles into the center of Donetzk city. Russia launched dozens of drones towards Odessa. In both cities several people were killed and wounded.
President Putin of Russia began the year with a visit to a military hospital (in Russian, machine translation):
On January 1 of the new year, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived at the Central Military Clinical Hospital named after A. A. Vishnevsky. Not just like that, but with an inspection and a conversation with military personnel wounded during a special military operation. A frank conversation, with uncomfortable questions.
…
Putin, in response to a question from another military officer, also commented on the massive enemy strike on Belgorod on December 30. He did not hold back his emotions and directly called the incident a terrorist act.Targeted attack on the civilian population. Of course, this is a terrorist attack. Should we respond like this? Of course we can. We can hit the squares in Kiev and any other city. Denis, there are children walking there, mummies with strollers. I understand… I’m seething myself. I want to ask you something. Do we need to do this?
In response, the military explained that he does not talk about strikes on civilians. He believes that it is necessary to hit the military, infrastructure: “We need a strike to once and for all, so that they can not come to their senses and respond to us already.”
And that’s what we do. You noticed that just the next day such strikes were delivered. And today, in my opinion, they are applied. And tomorrow they will be,
– Putin promised.
The President reminded that we use high-precision weapons to hit places where the enemy makes decisions, places where military personnel, mercenaries gather, and other similar centers.
First of all, for military facilities. And they are quite sensitive, these blows. So we will do it. You probably noticed that just the next day such strikes were delivered. And today, in my opinion, they are applied. And tomorrow we will do it. You know what the point of what they do is: they want to: a) intimidate us and b) create some kind of uncertainty in our country. But we, for our part, will step up the strikes I mentioned. Definitely. No such crime – and it is certainly a crime – against the civilian population will go unpunished. This is 100%. There can be no doubt about it.
Patrick Armstrong reminds everyone to listen to what Putin says.
This morning a total of four waves with probably hundreds of drones and missiles hit Kiev and other Ukrainian cities.
First came geranium suicide drones to exhaust Ukrainian air defenses. Then followed cruise and ballistic missile strikes (machine translation):…
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