Russia on Wednesday urged the West to sit down at the negotiating table under penalty of “destruction of the Ukrainian population”, a few hours after a new “massive” drone attack against kyiv.
More than two and a half years after the start of its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow finds itself in a position of strength on the eastern front, where its army is advancing increasingly quickly against fewer and less well-equipped Ukrainian troops.
The election of Donald Trump to the American presidency also leaves Ukraine and Europeans fearing American disengagement in the months to come.
Finally, in recent days, the Kremlin forces have also, according to kyiv and the West, received as reinforcements at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers who should soon join the battlefield in Russia.
It is in this difficult context that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is traveling to Budapest on Thursday for a meeting with senior European leaders.
At the same time, Russia continues its daily bombings of Ukraine, in an apparent desire to break the morale of the population. In recent weeks, it has intensified its strikes on Ukrainian cities, notably kyiv.
The capital was targeted by drone attacks six of the seven days of the first week of November and 20 days in October, according to the military administration.
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, air defense destroyed “more than thirty” of these aircraft over the city and its suburbs, the administration said on Telegram.
The air alert began shortly after midnight and lasted eight hours, according to AFP journalists on the scene who heard drones flying over the city center, as well as air defense fire trying to shoot them down.
Drone fragments fell in six districts of kyiv out of a total of ten, causing two minor injuries, according to the military administration.
The attack caused the fire of a residential building, a private clinic, a business center, a gas station and houses, according to the town hall.
“Destruction of the population”
In this very delicate situation for kyiv, the head of the Russian Security Council and former Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, opted for a threatening and martial tone to push the West into negotiations favorable to Moscow.
“The situation in the theater of hostilities is not in favor of the kyiv regime, the West has a choice: continue its financing (of Ukraine) and the destruction of the Ukrainian population or admit the existing realities and begin to negotiate,” he said during a meeting.
Shoigu also again accused the West of using Ukraine to try to defeat Russia, with Moscow continuing to reject the term invasion and suppressing any voices saying otherwise.
The question of the sustainability of Western support for Ukraine is all the more pressing for kyiv since during his electoral campaign, Donald Trump continued to denounce the scale of aid to kyiv.
With his return to the White House, the ball is in the American court, said the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, on Thursday.
“We will see if there are any proposals” from the new American administration, he declared.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his assault on Ukraine in February 2022 and then claimed the annexation of entire regions of the country. kyiv was able to resist thanks to Western military aid.
But, for the past year, faced with more numerous Russian forces as well as growing Western procrastination, the Ukrainian army has been in retreat and territorial losses have accelerated this fall.
On Thursday, the Russian army claimed the capture of a new village, Kreminna Balka, in the eastern region of Donetsk, the conquest of which is the Kremlin’s priority.
Moscow is demanding that Ukraine lay down its arms, cede five regions, renounce its alliance with the West and its ambition to join NATO. Unacceptable conditions for kyiv.
Americans and Europeans assure Ukraine of their unwavering support, but refuse to authorize it to strike deep into Russian territory with the weapons they provide and to shoot down Russian missiles targeting Ukrainian cities, for fear that this would leads to escalation.
Volodymyr Zelensky sharply criticized the West, noting that Moscow is leading a continuous escalation in the conflict, the latest being the suspected deployment of thousands of North Korean soldiers.
With AFP
