KVIV/MOSCOW, Dec 26 (Reuters) – Russian forces bombarded scores of towns in Ukraine on Christmas Day as Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned he was open to negotiations, a stance Washington has dismissed as posturing due to continued Russian assaults.
Russia on Sunday launched greater than 10 rocket assaults on the Kupiansk district within the Kharkiv area, shelled greater than 25 towns alongside the Kupiansk-Lyman frontline, and in Zaporizhzhia hit almost 20 towns, mentioned Ukraine’s prime army command.
Russia’s defence ministry mentioned on Sunday that it had killed about 60 Ukrainian servicemen the day gone by alongside the Kupiansk-Lyman line of contact and destroyed quite a few items of Ukrainian army tools.
Reuters was not in a position to independently confirm the studies.
Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine – which Moscow calls a “special military operation” – has triggered the most important European battle since World War Two and confrontation between Moscow and the West because the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Despite Putin’s newest supply to barter, there isn’t a finish in sight to the 10-month battle.
“We are ready to negotiate with everyone involved about acceptable solutions, but that is up to them – we are not the ones refusing to negotiate, they are,” Putin advised Rossiya 1 state tv in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy mentioned Putin wanted to return to actuality and acknowledge it was Russia that didn’t need talks.
“Russia single-handedly attacked Ukraine and is killing citizens,” the adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, tweeted. “Russia doesn’t want negotiations, but tries to avoid responsibility.”
Russian assaults on energy stations have left thousands and thousands with out electrical energy, and Zelenskiy mentioned Moscow would purpose to make the previous few days of 2022 darkish and tough.
“Russia has lost everything it could this year. … I know darkness will not prevent us from leading the occupiers to new defeats. But we have to be ready for any scenario,” he mentioned in a night video tackle on Christmas Day.
Ukraine has historically not celebrated Christmas on Dec. 25, however Jan. 7, the identical as Russia. However, this 12 months some Orthodox Ukrainians determined to have a good time the vacation on Dec. 25 and Ukrainian officers, beginning with Zelenskiy and Ukraine’s prime minister, issued Christmas needs on Sunday.
The Kremlin says it can battle till all its territorial goals are achieved, whereas Kyiv says it is not going to relaxation till each Russian soldier is ejected from the nation.
Asked if the geopolitical battle with the West was approaching a harmful degree, Putin on Sunday mentioned: “I don’t think it’s so dangerous.”
Kyiv and the West say Putin has no justification for what they solid as an imperial-style battle of occupation.
BELARUS MISSILES
Russian-supplied Iskander tactical missile techniques, that are able to carrying nuclear warheads, and S-400 air defence techniques have been deployed to Belarus and are ready to carry out their meant duties, a senior Belarusian defence ministry official mentioned on Sunday.
“Our servicemen, crews have fully completed their training in the joint combat training centres of the armed forces of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus,” Leonid Kasinsky, head of the Main Directorate of Ideology on the ministry, mentioned in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app.
“These types of weapons (Iskander and S-400 systems) are on combat duty today and they are fully prepared to perform tasks for their intended purpose,” Kasinsky added.
It just isn’t clear how lots of the Iskander techniques have been deployed to Belarus after Putin mentioned in June that Moscow would provide Minsk with them and the air defence techniques.
The information follows Putin’s go to to Minsk on Dec. 19 amid fears in Kyiv he would strain Belarus to hitch a contemporary floor offensive and open a brand new entrance in his faltering invasion.
Russian forces used Belarus as a launch pad for his or her abortive assault on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in February, and there was a rising flurry of Russian and Belarusian army exercise in latest months.
The Iskander-M, a cell guided missile system code named “SS-26 Stone” by NATO, changed the Soviet-era “Scud”. The guided missiles have a variety of as much as 500 km (300 miles) and might carry typical or nuclear warheads.
That vary reaches deep into neighbours of Belarus: Ukraine and NATO member Poland, which has very strained relations with Minsk.
The S-400 system is a Russian cell, surface-to-air missile (SAM) interception system able to partaking plane, UAVs, cruise missiles, and has a terminal ballistic missile defence functionality.
Blasts have been heard at Russia’s Engels air base, lots of of kilometres (miles) from the Ukraine frontlines, Ukrainian and Russian media reported on Monday.
Russia’s governor of Saratov area, residence to the Engels air-base, mentioned regulation enforcement businesses have been checking details about “an incident at a military facility”.
“There were no emergencies in residential areas of the (Engels) city,” Roman Busargin, the governor of the area, mentioned on the Telegram messaging app. “Civil infrastructure facilities were not damaged.”
The air base, close to town of Saratov, about 730 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow, was hit on Dec. 5 in what Russia mentioned have been Ukrainian drone assaults on two Russian air bases that day. The strikes dealt Moscow a significant reputational blow and raised questions on why its defences failed, analysts mentioned.
Ukraine has by no means publicly claimed accountability for assaults inside Russia, however has mentioned, nonetheless, that such incidents are “karma” for Russia’s invasion.
Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Himani Sarkar
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