Russia Steps Up Air and Ground Attacks as One-Year Anniversary of Ukraine Invasion Nears

Russia Steps Up Air and Ground Attacks as One-Year Anniversary of Ukraine Invasion Nears

As war in Ukraine approaches its one-year anniversary, Russia is stepping up ground and aerial attacks. On Friday, the Russian military used an array of long-range bombers, cruise missiles, and suicide drones to hit military and energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine.

The TV channel France24 reported:

Russia carried out a “massive strike” on critically important energy facilities of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex on Friday, the Russian defence ministry said on Saturday.

Ukraine’s armed forces said in an evening update that Russian forces fired more than 100 missiles throughout the country and staged 12 air and 20 shelling attacks. (…)

Ukraine’s energy operator Ukrenergo said “power plants and high voltage network facilities” had been affected in the east, west and south, with the “most difficult situation” in the region of Kharkiv, near the border with Russia.

Meanwhile, the Russian military continued its grinding advance in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. The Associated Press reported Saturday that Russian “ground forces were focusing on Ukraine’s industrial east, especially the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that make up the industrial Donbas region where recent fighting has been most intense, the Ukrainian military said.”

Kyiv Fears Major Russian Offensive

In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial mobilization” of around 300,000 reservists. Kyiv is gearing up for a large-scale Russian offensive as newly-mobilized Russian troops are expected to join the fighting after months of training.

The Ukrainian military planners fear that the Kremlin might be planning a second round of mass-mobilization, further bolstering the Russian fighting forces along the Ukrainian front.

The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday:

Ukraine said Russia had everything in place to launch a second wave of military mobilization but was waiting to gauge the success of a stepped-up offensive aimed at capturing swaths of territory ahead of the first anniversary of its invasion later this month.

“Everything is ready,” the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Vadym Skibitsky, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “The personnel is in place, the lists are ready, the people tasked with carrying out recruitment and training are on standby.” (…)

Bolstered by tens of thousands of mobilized troops and convicts recruited into paramilitary units fighting alongside the regular armed forces, Russia has made limited gains in recent weeks after months on the back foot. Russian forces have surrounded the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk from three sides, as Ukrainian troops continue to defend it at a significant cost to both armies.

Kyiv has asked Western allies for a fresh supply of ammunition as the Russian military steps up its ground offensive along the 600-mile frontline in the east. The UK newspaper Financial Times reported Friday:

Ukraine has pleaded with its allies for ammunition and artillery “immediately”, warning it is running short of stocks to defend against a new Russian offensive that Kyiv fears is imminent.

The demand, by deputy prime minister Olha Stefanishyna, came on a day when Moscow launched ballistic missiles against Ukraine’s infrastructure. It also followed a tour of western capitals by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that emphasised longer-term supplies of fighter jets and heavy weaponry.

“What is of ultimate urgency is . . . the ammunition and the artillery that we need immediately to make sure that we can operate with the new military equipment we received,” Stefanishyna said in an interview with the Financial Times. “We do not have this amount of ammunition that we need.”

Kyiv is preparing for an imminent large-scale attack by Russian troops as the Kremlin attempts to seize more territory in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine ahead of the first anniversary of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion later this month.

Russia Cuts Oil Production Over Western Price Cap

Oil prices rose on Friday after Russia slashed its production in response to the price cap of $60 per barrel on crude oil imposed by the Western nations. The price cap is devised to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which has led to a surge in global oil and gas prices.

“Russia will reduce crude oil production by 500,000 barrels per day from March after major economies imposed a price cap on oil products,” the BBC reported Friday. “European Union, G7 nations and Australia have capped how much they will pay for oil and refined products.” Russia is the world’s largest producer of crude and refined oil.

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