Juan Pablo Duch
Correspondent
La Jornada Newspaper
Wednesday, November 27, 2024, p. 28
Moscow. Russia admitted yesterday that, despite having attacked a military consortium in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with its new generation hypersonic ballistic missile called Oreshnik (Hazel), as a warning that it is in a position to reach in a matter of minutes any European country whose weapons are used against targets in Russian territory, Ukraine once again launched long-range (up to 300 kilometers) US missiles against military installations in the region of Kursk.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, after stating that the situation is under control, announced that response actions are preparedwithout specifying what type or when they will take place.
“Based on verified data, the Ukrainian army, in the recent three days, launched two long-range weapons attacks on Kursk, using tactical missiles Atacms manufactured in the United States,” the ministry said in a statement.
The military department specified that on Saturday, November 23, the Ukrainian army fired five missiles Atacms against the positions of an anti-aircraft rocket division S-400 near the town of Lotariovka, 37 kilometers from the city of Kursk, capital of the homonymous region.
On Monday, November 25, the statement indicates, the Vostochny airport in the city of Kursk, which houses the Jalino air base, “withstood the attack of eight Atacms” and only one reached his goal. The text from the Russian Ministry of Defense assures that, of the 13 missiles launched by Ukraine, its anti-aircraft defense systems intercepted 10. However, it acknowledged, something it does not usually do, that Unfortunately there were victims and damage to infrastructure.
During the early hours of yesterday, the Russian army established a new record in the number of drones launched against Ukraine in a single attack in 17 regions of that country, 188 unmanned aerial devices with explosive charges, according to the daily war report of the ukrainian air force.
The Ukrainian military claims to have shot down 76 drones and assert that around a hundred deviated from their route due to interference from kyiv’s electronic warfare means.
According to that military report, Russia also fired four ballistic missiles Iskander-Mthat They could not be intercepted, causing damage to critical infrastructure. No fatalities or injuries were reported, although there were numerous impacts on houses and buildings from fragments of downed drones.
For some time now, analysts consider, the Russian army seeks with its massive drone launches to exhaust Ukrainian anti-aircraft projectiles and locate their location for subsequent missile attacks, while Ukraine increasingly resorts to electronic means to save ammunition.
Regarding the situation on the war front, the order given in February 2022 by President Vladimir Putin to expel the Ukrainian army beyond the administrative borders of the Donietsk and Luhansk regions remains unfulfilled. According to experts, the advances made by Russian troops are equivalent to 10 percent of the territory they need to occupy so that no Ukrainian soldiers remain within those regions.
Thus, so far in November – according to data from the Ukrainian platform DeepState, which bases its conclusions on satellite images of the area – the Russian army has conquered nearly 600 square kilometers of territory, especially in the Donietsk region, and is trying to to advance as much as possible before winter, with the arrival of snow and cold, slows down operations.
Ukrainian troops, for their part, still maintain control of nearly 800 kilometers of the Russian region of Kursk, which they invaded last August and where they occupied nearly 1,200 square kilometers, that is, they had to withdraw from 400 square kilometers. .
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Oleksander Syrskyi, confirmed yesterday that the enemy is concentrating forces on the border to begin a new offensivein the area where the Donietsk and Zaporizhia regions meet.
For several days now, both Russian and Ukrainian experts have been wondering how the Russian military command could use, when the weather permits, the nearly 130,000 soldiers who, it is estimated, are currently at the disposal of the Dnieper army group commanded of the controversial General Mikhail Teplinsky.
Some are inclined to believe that part of this contingent could reinforce the troops trying to surround the Pokrovsk bastion and others believe that its mission could be to try to expel the Ukrainian army from the city of Zaporizhia, capital of the homonymous region, but the latter seems not an easy task and would have a high cost in casualties as the attacker would be forced to cross the Dnieper River.
