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Ukraine claims “massive attack” in Russia, important Pokrovsk mine shut down
Ukraine claimed Tuesday to have carried out the “most massive” attack of the war against military and industrial installations in several regions of Russia during the night, using, according to Moscow, Western missiles. Ukrainian forces , they have increased air attacks in recent months against fuel depots, refineries and military sites in Russia to hinder the logistics of Russian forces fighting on Ukrainian territory. “The Ukrainian defense forces have carried out the most massive attacks against military targets (…) distance of 200 to 1,100 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 , then 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, rocket launchers multiple, aviation and missiles. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, 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 promised a systematic response to any Western missile strike on its territory, and threatened to target the center of kyiv or even to use its new experimental hypersonic missile Orechnik.- Refineries and factories – “Missiles directly hit the site” and caused “a major fire,” assured a source within the Ukrainian security service (SBU). She also cited strikes on chemical plant in the Tula region, an ammunition depot at an airfield in Engels, 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, chief -place in Tatarstan, where “a gas tank caught fire”, and in the Saratov region, located about 700 kilometers southeast of Moscow, where “two industrial enterprises were damaged” as a result of 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. – The Pokrovsk mine stopped – Kiev and Moscow have intensified their strikes in recent months and want to improve their positions before the return to Donald Trump’s White House next Monday, the American president-elect having said he wanted 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 generated by the return of the unpredictable American leader. On the front, illustration of the Russian push, the important Pokrovsk mine, the last coke mine under control Ukrainian, has been shut down “due to the deterioration of the security situation”, announced the owner group Metinvest. Located in Pokrovsk, a logistics hub of the Ukrainian army and target of Russian assaults, it is the only mine under the control of kyiv 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 Kiev’s forces because it is located at a railway and road crossroads, on the he 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 Ukrainian army in difficulty. 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.bur/led/dth
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