As Russian forces bombarded two strategically important cities and Kyiv’s forces blasted Russian-controlled portions of Donetsk in the east, a Ukrainian general claimed that Moscow was preparing for a protracted war and still desired to seize the entirety of Ukraine.
Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov, a top Ukrainian military, stated at a news conference on Thursday that “the Kremlin… is trying to convert the situation into a prolonged armed battle.”
“The enemy’s primary strategic goal [remains] conquering all of our country’s land [and] preventing Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration,” stated Gromov.
A Christmas truce has been rejected by both parties, and there are no ongoing negotiations to put an end to the conflict’s nearly 10-month duration.
According to the military General Staff of Ukraine, Moscow’s main attention is still on the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, but it is also regularly bombarding Kherson in the south and attempting to get a deeper foothold in the Zaporizhia region in the south.
Two persons were killed in the center of Kherson, which Ukraine freed last month, by Russian shelling, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy director of the president’s office, on Thursday. The shelling also cut out the city’s electricity, officials said.
According to UN humanitarian coordinator Denise Brown, one of those slain in Kherson was a female paramedic with the Ukrainian National Red Cross Society. She claimed that a structure used by volunteers and local authorities to disperse aid was struck by the incident.
“Knowing that a location that supports civilians, particularly the elderly, who need assistance due to the war has been hit is shocking,” she said.
Inquiries about the strike on Kherson were not immediately answered by the Russian defense ministry.
Four people were hurt and one died close to Bakhmut, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk area.
According to its mayor, Ihor Terekhov, via the messaging app Telegram, Russian forces also struck crucial infrastructure in the city of Kharkiv in the region’s northeast, resulting in many explosions.
The mayor of Donetsk, Alexei Kulemzin, who was placed by Russia, claimed on Thursday that Ukraine had launched 40 rockets from BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers at the city, the country’s largest attack against it since separatists supported by Russia took control of it in 2014.
Although Kulemzin reported that five people, including a toddler, had been harmed, there were no reports of deaths in Donetsk.
On Thursday, national grid operator Ukrenergo said Ukraine continues to experience a “severe” deficit of electricity owing to Russian strikes, including new ones in the east, adding that the situation was compounded by the wintry weather.
Since October, Russia has launched a volley of missiles at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, disrupting power supply and depriving residents of heat throughout the bitterly cold winter.
Further assaults on Ukraine’s infrastructure, according to Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Population Rights, may result in significant human displacement and humanitarian degradation.
Turk claimed that Russian strikes subjected millions of Ukrainians to “severe hardship” in an address to the Human Rights Council during a trip to Ukraine last week.
Additional strikes “may ignite greater displacement and seriously deteriorate the humanitarian situation,” he said.
He continued by calling the war “an undeniable tragedy and disaster.”
While Kiev claims the strikes are a war crime, Moscow claims they are intended to weaken Ukraine’s resolve to fight and force it to engage in negotiations.
At a European Union conference on Thursday, Poland abandoned its opposition to a minimal corporate tax, unblocking a series of related accords, including one that will provide Ukraine with $19.16 billion in funding by 2023.
