War in Ukraine | A “massive attack” in Russia claimed, the important Pokrovsk mine shut down

(Kyiv) Ukraine claimed on Tuesday to have carried out during the night the “most massive” attack of the war against military and industrial installations in several regions of Russia, using, according to Moscow, Western missiles.

Ukrainian forces have increased air attacks in recent months against fuel depots, refineries and military sites in Russia to hamper the logistics of Russian forces fighting on Ukrainian territory.

“Ukrainian Defense Forces carried out the most massive strikes against military targets […] at a distance of 200 to 1100 kilometers deep in Russia,” welcomed the Ukrainian general staff.

According to this source, the strikes “successfully” hit an oil depot in Engels, which had already been targeted on January 8, causing a five-day fire in which two Russian firefighters died.

Another target: the Seltso chemical plant, in the Bryansk region, which according to Kyiv produces components for artillery, multiple rocket launchers, aviation and missiles.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, this Ukrainian strike was carried out using six American ATACMS missiles and six British Storm Shadow missiles. He assured that all the projectiles were shot down without causing any casualties.

However, Russia has promised a systematic response to any Western missile strike on its territory, and has threatened to target the center of Kyiv or even to use its new experimental Orechnik hypersonic missile.

Refineries and factories

“Missiles directly hit the site” and caused “a major fire,” assured a source within the Ukrainian security service (SBU).

It also cited strikes on a chemical plant in the Tula region, an ammunition depot at an Engels airfield in the Saratov region, and an oil refinery in the same region.

Local Russian authorities also reported a Ukrainian attack in the suburbs of Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, where “a gas tank caught fire”, and in the Saratov region, located approximately 700 kilometers southeast of Moscow, where “two industrial companies were damaged” following a “massive drone attack”.

A Ukrainian official, Andriï Kovalenko, mocked on Telegram the “shortcomings of the Russian air defense system”.

“Oil refineries, oil depots, factories producing weapons components, so many elements without which the Russian army will not be able to fight intensively,” he assured.

Pokrovsk mine shut down

Kyiv and Moscow have intensified their strikes in recent months and want to improve their positions before Donald Trump returns to the White House next Monday, the American president-elect having said he wants to work to stop the war as soon as he takes office.

From Kyiv, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday that Europe would “strengthen” its defense cooperation in the face of current “threats” and the uncertainty caused by the return of the unpredictable American leader. .

On the front, an illustration of the Russian push, the important Pokrovsk mine, the last coke mine under Ukrainian control, has been shut down “due to the deterioration of the security situation”, announced the owner group Metinvest .

Located in Pokrovsk, a logistics hub for the Ukrainian army and target of Russian assaults, it is the only mine under Kyiv’s control to produce coke, a coal necessary for the manufacture of steel, Ukraine’s second largest export product.

The suspension of its activities is therefore bad news for the economy of Kyiv, already ravaged by the war.

The city of Pokrovsk is also of strategic importance for Kyiv’s forces, as it is located at a rail and road crossroads, on the E50 axis which connects the east of the country to the large central city of Dnipro, further from the front. .

Elsewhere in the East, Russian forces are continuing their undermining work to gain ground against a struggling Ukrainian army. They claimed on Tuesday the capture of two villages, Terny and Neskoutchné, which had been liberated by Ukrainian troops from a first Russian occupation in October 2022 and June 2023 respectively.