War in Ukraine | Eleven dead in Russian attacks, Moscow claims capture of two villages

(Moscow) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow on Friday of two air attacks that killed at least 11 people on Ukrainian territory.

The series of attacks comes after weeks of escalation in the nearly three-year-old war, with Moscow intensifying its attacks on energy infrastructure at the start of winter.

“The thousands of such strikes carried out by Russia during this war clearly show that Putin does not need real peace,” he charged in a message on Telegram.

Nine people were killed in the southern town of Zaporizhia and two in the central town of Kryvyi Rig, according to authorities.

“Only by force can we resist him. And it is only through force that true peace can be established,” the president added.

According to the latter, the strike on the southern town of Zaporizhia targeted a “gas station and cars carrying people”.

A total of 19 people were injured, including at least two children, according to local authorities.

President Zelensky also spoke of the strike on the town of Kryvyi Rig in central Ukraine, where he is native.

“Seventeen people were injured. Two of them died,” explained Volodymyr Zelensky in his statement.

Among the injured is “a 6-year-old boy”, according to Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the military administration of Kryvyï Rig, on Telegram.

“The fate of another person is still unknown, an emergency rescue operation is underway,” added the head of the military administration.

President Zelensky is expected to travel to Paris this weekend for the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP, where he hopes to meet with US President-elect Donald Trump.

Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly said that Ukraine would not be able to repel advancing Russian troops without U.S. support, and Kyiv fears that Mr. Trump will try to force it to accept terms of peace favorable to Russia.

Moscow claims the capture of two villages

The Russian army claimed Friday the capture of two villages located in two key areas of the front, on the outskirts of the towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhové in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops are struggling to stop Russian advances.

The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have conquered the town of Poustynka, about ten kilometers south of Pokrovsk, an important town for the logistics of the Ukrainian army and because of its coke mine, an important fuel for industry. steel industry.

Further south, he also claimed the conquest of the village of Soukhi Yaly, southwest of Kourakhové, a town located near a large deposit of lithium, a rare mineral.

The Ukrainian army, undermined by a lack of men and weapons, has been on the defensive for more than a year. Since the fall, his forces have been retreating more and more rapidly.

The Russian army advanced 725 km² in Ukrainian territory during the month of November, its largest territorial gain in a month since March 2022 and the first weeks of its large-scale assault, according to an AFP analysis on Monday based on data from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Already in October, it had advanced 478 km²which was the previous record.

Russia, despite heavy losses, has made the conquest of Donbass in eastern Ukraine its priority.

The difficulties of the Ukrainian army and the uncertainties over the serenity of American aid to Kyiv with the imminent return to the White House of Donald Trump have revived speculation on possible peace talks.

Ukraine, for its part, is calling for an increase in Western support to be in a more favorable position in the event of negotiations and achieve a “just peace” in 2025.

Russia, which excludes any concession, demands the surrender of the Ukrainian army, that Kyiv renounces its ambition to join NATO and agrees to cede five of its regions. Demands deemed unacceptable by Kyiv and its Western allies.

Putin considers deployment of Russian Orechnik missiles in Belarus “possible”

Vladimir Putin on Friday deemed it “possible” a deployment in Belarus of latest generation Russian Orechnik missiles, which can carry a nuclear charge, from the second half of 2025, in the midst of renewed Russian-Western tensions.

“I consider that the positioning of weapons [russes] such as Orechnik on the territory of Belarus is possible,” declared the Russian president alongside his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, after signing a mutual agreement on security guarantees in Minsk.

“I think this will become possible in the second half of next year, when production of these weapons increases in Russia and these missiles enter service with the Russian strategic forces,” he said.

“We will have set up serial production” and “at the same time, we will begin to deploy them on the territory of Belarus,” said the Russian president under the auspices of the presidential palace in Minsk, according to a broadcast on Russian television.

The Russian head of state has boasted in recent days about the characteristics of his experimental Orechnik intermediate-range missile, a weapon that can carry a nuclear charge and strike thousands of kilometers away.

The Russian army used the missile for the first time on November 21 against a Ukrainian city, with Mr. Putin presenting the attack as a response to recent Ukrainian strikes against Russian soil using American and British missiles, while threatening to directly strike the countries that arm Kyiv.

The master of the Kremlin also threatened to strike “decision-making centers” in Kyiv with his powerful Orechnik missile.