NEW YEAR NEW ESCALATION IN UKRAINE

The beginning of the year 2024 was marked by the new escalation of the war in Ukraine. The warring sides are exchanging heavy strikes. In an attempt to revenge the devastating Russian strikes on the military infrastructure, Kiev launched a terrorist attack on the city of Belgorod, killing at least 25 civilians, including 5 children. More civilians fell victims of the Ukrainian shelling in the Belgorod region in the first days of 2024. Over the past night alone, 8 Tochka-U and 13 Olkha missiles were intercepted over Belgorod. On the New Year’s Eve, Ukrainian forces heavily shelled Donetsk, killing at least 5 more civilians and wounding 14 others. On January 2, a woman was killed and 6 other civilians were wounded by Ukrainian MLRS fire in the Zaporozhie region. On the morning of January 3, two more civilians were wounded in Tokmak. Last night, the local authorities reported the interception of another Ukrainian missile in the Black Sea. Some military sources claimed that Ukrainian Su-24, which launched the Storm Shadow missile on the peninsula, was also shot down. Ukrainian strikes on civilians do not stop in the Russian border regions as well as in the former Ukrainian regions, which Kiev lost; but they seem miserable comparing to the scale of the Russian retaliation strikes. Despite the attempts of Ukrainian propaganda to blame Moscow for the alleged genocide, Ukrainians themselves provide evidence of Russian precision strikes on the military infrastructure and of course Ukrainian air defense hitting civilian facilities. According to Zelensky, Russian forces have launched at least 500 missiles and drones at Ukraine over the past 5 days. While the Ukrainian military lied about the interception of almost all of them, explosions thundered throughout the country. In recent days, the Ukrainian military-industrial complex was subjected to massive attacks of Geran kamikaze drones, missiles of various types, including hypersonic Kinzhals, while the Ukrainian air defense forces were overloaded fighting numerous false targets. Most of the destroyed targets remained unknown, but the open data allowed to confirm the damage to various fuel and ammo depots, hidden military bases, airfields etc throughout the country. Destruction of various enterprises used for production of military equipment, mainly UAVs, was confirmed by the Ukrainians themselves. Among the targets in Kharkiv, the Malyshev tank factory was heavily damaged. Footage from Kiev confirmed strikes at the Mayak arms factory, the Radioizmeritel enterprise and the former main workshop of the Kvazar plant. These are only few of the facilities hit by Russian strikes in the recent days. The massive attacks are likely to continue, while the Russian troops are holding the military initiative on the frontlines.