The Kremlin vowed on Tuesday that it wanted to do “everything” to stop Ukrainian strikes on Belgorod, a Russian city that became the target of attacks by kyiv after Russia resumed large-scale bombings in Ukraine.
Russian authorities announced today that a woman was killed by Ukrainian shelling in the Kursk border region, while three other people were injured in a new drone attack in the Oriol region.
“Our army will continue to do everything in its power to first minimize the danger and then completely eliminate it,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the attacks on the Russian soil.
He accused kyiv of deliberately targeting “civilians” on Russian soil using military equipment supplied by the West.
These comments come after ten days marked in Russia by the multiplication of Ukrainian attacks targeting Belgorod, a town of 335,000 inhabitants located less than 40 km from the border with Ukraine.
The day after a large-scale bombing of Ukraine on December 29 which left dozens dead, the city of Belgorod was the target of a strike killing 25 people, the deadliest Ukrainian attack against civilians. on Russian soil since February 24, 2022.
In retaliation, Vladimir Putin said he wanted to “intensify” strikes against Ukraine, his army continuing its major bombings on kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, like on January 2 and 8.
The Ukrainian authorities, for their part, have revised upwards the toll of the Russian attack on December 29 on kyiv, brought to 33 dead, and that of the strikes on the night of Sunday to Monday, now announced at five civilians killed.
A woman killed
But a sign that concern is growing in Belgorod, “around 300” people have already evacuated the town according to the regional authorities, who have also postponed the start of the school year by ten days, to January 19.
As for the municipality, it called on residents last week to secure their windows to prevent further strikes.
And the Ukrainian attacks appear not to be decreasing in intensity.
In the border village of Gornal, located in the Kursk region, “a woman was killed by shrapnel” on Tuesday afternoon, said Governor Roman Starovoit.
The one from the Oriol region, Andreï Klychkov, reported on Telegram “three minor injuries” in a Ukrainian drone attack on energy installations, while the Ministry of Defense announced that it had shot down eight drones above the Oriol and Kursk regions.
However, two months before the presidential election which should see Vladimir Putin returned to power until at least 2030, the Kremlin wants to do everything to continue to give the image that the conflict with Ukraine does not directly affect daily life and the security of the Russians.
In the same vein, Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Minister of Defense, assured Tuesday as usual that his army inflicted heavy losses on the Ukrainian forces and that it was in a better position than its adversary, despite a largely frozen front. since fall 2022, after a series of Russian retreats.
The Russian army, however, foiled the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer of 2023, which the Kremlin presents as a victory.
“We retain the strategic initiative across the entire front line,” assured Mr. Shoigu during a meeting with senior army officers.
Optimism despite losses
Since the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the tone has been much more optimistic in Moscow, despite significant losses on the ground, estimated by the United States at 315,000 soldiers wounded or killed in less than two years.
The Russian army returned to the offensive in the fall of 2023, particularly around Avdiïvka in the Donetsk region. But the advances there have been minor and kyiv claims to be inflicting heavy losses on Russian forces.
For its part, Ukraine must face a debate within its society on a possible mobilization of hundreds of thousands of men to come and reinforce its lines and replace the dead and exhausted veterans after almost two years of a high-intensity conflict.
kyiv, which is increasingly demanding more anti-aircraft defense systems to counter Russian attacks, is loudly worried about the erosion of Western support, against a backdrop of political dissension within the European Union and the United States.