Drone attacks on an unprecedented scale targeted Ukraine and the region of the Russian capital Moscow during the night from Saturday to Sunday, both camps denounced, despite the meeting on Thursday between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, who would have asked not to provoke an escalation in Ukraine according to le Washington Post. This would be the first telephone conversation between the two men since Mr. Trump won the US presidential election last Tuesday.
They discussed the goal of peace on the European continent and the American president-elect said he hoped to be able to discuss “the resolution of the war in Ukraine soon”according to anonymous sources from the American daily. Questioned by AFP, Donald Trump's entourage did not confirm this first telephone conversation between the two men since Mr. Trump won the presidential election on November 5.
“An agreement that leads to peace”
While the conflict between kyiv and Moscow still rages, the Kremlin has said it sees “positive signals”, since he mentioned a possible “peace” and did not show “desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia”. “Trump, during his election campaign, said that he collects all this through agreements. And that he can obtain an agreement that leads to peace”said the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, in an interview broadcast on Sunday. “He talks about peace, not confrontation, not the desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which distinguishes him favorably from the current administration”he continued.
Berlin, for its part, announced that Mr. Trump had spoken on Sunday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Both of them “said they are ready to work together for a return to peace in Europe”said the Chancellor's spokesperson, Steffen Hebestreit.
Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on January 20, has regularly claimed he can end the war “in one day”without ever detailing how he would go about it. But this could probably involve a deal that would require Kyiv to cede part of its territory to Moscow. This question of land would also have been raised, according to the same sources.
With Donald Trump's victory, the question arises of the sustainability of American support, which has enabled Ukraine to resist Russian troops since February 2022. The United States will spend the remaining six billion dollars dedicated to Ukraine before the arrival of Mr. Trump to power, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, warning of the risks linked to the cessation of American support for kyiv.
On the ground, the fighting continues
Air alerts were triggered in several regions of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, during the night from Sunday to Monday, according to Ukrainian media Suspenseful. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have neutralized 34 drones in the Moscow region on Sunday morning, a record number in the area of the Russian capital since the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 2022. According to this source, 36 other Ukrainian drones were shot down in two regions bordering Moscow and in three others bordering Ukraine.
The governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobiov, said that the interceptions took place in particular over the towns of Ramenskoye and Domodedovo, about 40 kilometers southeast of the center of Moscow and near airports. . According to him, a 52-year-old woman was injured by shrapnel, burned to the face, neck and hands, and two houses were set on fire.
This operation in the suburbs of Moscow comes four days after a massive Russian drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, targeted almost daily for a month. During the night from Saturday to Sunday, a new attack «record» of 145 Russian drones targeted Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced on X. The Ukrainian Air Force said 62 of the 145 drones had been neutralized. For the moment, the Ukrainian authorities have not claimed responsibility for the drone strikes targeting Moscow.
Ukrainian troops exhausted
On the front, Ukrainian troops are becoming exhausted, suffering from their inferiority in weapons and personnel, and retreating in multiple sectors in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops have been advancing more rapidly in recent weeks. Russia claimed on Sunday the conquest of a new village, that of Vovtchenka, in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk (east).
Furthermore, thousands of North Korean soldiers are, according to Kyiv and the West, deployed in the Russian region of Kursk, where the Ukrainian army has controlled a few hundred square kilometers since its surprise operation launched on August 6. kyiv assures that they have already been engaged in combat.
The West, however, refuses to authorize kyiv to strike deep into Russian territory with the weapons it supplies and to shoot down Russian missiles targeting Ukrainian cities, for fear of an escalation.
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