Russia plans to ‘exhaust’ Ukraine with prolonged attacks – Zelensky
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The president of Ukraine claims that Russia intends to demoralise Ukraine through a protracted campaign of drone assaults.
The intelligence assessments, according to Volodymyr Zelensky, indicated that Moscow would use Shahed drones produced in Iran to carry out the assaults.
Russia said 63 of its soldiers were killed in the raid, disclosing war casualties highly uncommon.
In his nightly address from Kyiv, Mr. Zelensky declared that Russia intended to “exhaust” Ukraine with a steady stream of drone attacks.
Moscow has launched airstrikes on cities and power plants throughout Ukraine during the last three nights, suggesting that Russian drone attacks on that nation have risen recently.
According to correspondents, the strikes not only put a strain on Ukraine’s military, which must detect and intercept the drones, but they also have a cumulative effect on the civilian population, which must deal with the uncertainty, terror, and disruption they produce throughout the nation.
Russia has been attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for several months, damaging power plants and putting millions of people in the country’s bitter winter without power.
In the first days of 2023, over 80 drones produced in Iran had already been shot down by Ukrainian air defences.
In other news, Ukraine has admitted that it launched an attack in the Donetsk region that it had earlier claimed had killed 400 Russian soldiers.
Girkin, a well-known military blogger, was in charge of the rebels supported by Russia in 2014 when they took over significant portions of eastern Ukraine. For his role in the downing of Flight MH17, he was recently found guilty of murder.
Several Russian MPs have also sharply criticised military leaders for the assault, saying leaders must be held accountable for permitting troops to congregate in an exposed structure that was in the path of Ukrainian rockets and may have also housed munitions.
According to the US-based Institute for the Study of War, the Moscow defence ministry was likely attempting to shift responsibility for the security breakdown onto Russia’s stooges in Donetsk.
Russian mobile phone use by personnel entering the structure was discovered by Ukrainian forces, according to local security authorities quoted by the Tass news agency as the reason for the strike.