Kiev, Dec 29, (dpa/GNA) – Russian military forces, launched a new wave of attacks with kamikaze drones against Ukraine on Wednesday evening, according to the Ukrainian military, while Moscow said its troops are mulling how to cut off arms deliveries for Kiev from abroad.
The drones were directed against targets in the south and east of the country, Ukraine’s southern air defence said on Facebook.
Five drones were shot down in the Dnipro region, it said, adding, “let’s stay in a festive mood.”
The drones flew in several groups over the Donetsk region, Zaporizhzhya and Kharkiv, the report said. Observers also reported flights in the direction of Odessa.
According to reports by the Unian news agency, many of them were shot down.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, said the military is working on new plans to cut off supplies of weapons and ammunition for the Ukrainian army from abroad.
“We observe that Ukraine is receiving more and more and better Western weapons,” Lavrov said during an interview on Russian television on Wednesday. Therefore, he said, there are calls among military experts to interrupt these supply routes.
“Railway lines, bridges and tunnels” are being considered, Lavrov said. “I assume that they will make professional decisions on how to make these deliveries more difficult or, ideally, stop them altogether.”
To some extent, he said, they are already working on this with attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. Disrupting the energy grid is already making it more difficult to deliver new weapons, he said. “And I am convinced that there are other plans being applied in this regard.”
More than 700 elements of critical infrastructure have been destroyed in Ukraine since the Russian war began at the end of February, according to government figures.
“We are talking about gas pipelines, substations, bridges and the like,” Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Yevgeny Yenin said on television on Wednesday.
In total, more than 35,000 elements have been damaged by Russian troops, he added.
Since October, the Russian military has been specifically targeting energy supply facilities in Ukraine. The Ukrainian power grid has been severely damaged by the constant bombardment with missiles, cruise missiles and kamikaze drones.
Sudden emergency shutdowns leave people without light for hours during the dark and cold winter days, and they sometimes also cut them off from heat and water supplies.
On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, there were air attacks in several regions including on the city of Kherson, which was badly hit. The city, recently recaptured by Ukraine, was struck by 33 missiles and with artillery, according to the Ukrainian military’s general staff.
Rocket strikes were reported from the industrial city of Kharkiv in the morning.
Speaking in parliament in Kiev, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, described the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war as Europe’s biggest economic project.
Zelensky called on parliamentarians to draft laws that would attract entrepreneurs and investors.
In its latest assessment, the United Nations said the number of confirmed civilian casualties in Ukraine is approaching 18,000.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stressed, that the actual toll on Ukrainians was “considerably higher”, but obtaining reliable data from front-line areas was difficult.
From February 24, when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion, to December 26, there were 17,831 civilian casualties recorded in the country: 6,884 killed and 10,947 injured.
Among the killed were 429 children, the UN agency said in a statement late Tuesday.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, called for further support for his country in fending off the Russian invasion.
“Peace does not fall from the sky. It has to be fought for. And this is what we Ukrainians are doing on behalf of all Europeans,” Makeiev told the newspapers of Germany’s Funke Media Group in comments to be published on Thursday.
Ukrainians would welcome “more courage and determination from our allies and partners,” the ambassador said.
He also reiterated his plea for further arms deliveries, “to save even more civilians in Ukraine.”
GNA