Russia and Ukraine Trade Strikes as Kyiv Claims Successful Attack on Weapons Plant AP IMAGES

The Ukrainian and Russian governments both published claims of respective successes in striking each others’ military infrastructure while accusing the other of attacking civilians.

The Ukrainian armed forces say they succeeded in striking a major Russian weapons plant in Kaluga Oblast, Western Russia, in Russia’s Eastern European region bordering Moscow. The so-called ‘Typhoon’ plant, Ukraine’s ‘National Security and Defense Council’s Center for Countering Disinformation’ director Andriy Kovalenko says is an important part of the “Russian military-industrial complex”.

Among the work undertaken at the bombed plant, Kovalenko said, is the development and manufacture of military electronic equipment including communications and sensors, air defence and missile parts, and military equipment maintenance. Some media reports have called the facility a “missile factory”.

As well as the workshops, Ukraine also claims to have hit an oil refinery depot in the same region, which they called a ‘confirmed success’.

In all, Ukraine stated it had “struck a number of important objects of the Russian invaders in the Bryansk, Kaluga and Kursk regions of the Russian Federation”. The drone attack on Kaluga was claimed by Ukrainian media as the work of the nation’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, which is generally credited as having been beyond the most audacious and novel drone strikes.

Russia denies the attacks had a major impact, asserting their air defence shot down drones in the area and that any fires were caused by falling wreckage.

Meanwhile, Ukraine says Russia has been attempting to strike cities and regions across the country. President Volodymyr Zelensky said this morning: “Since last night Russia has launched nearly 150 strike drones, aerial bombs, and missiles, targeting over ten of our regions. Combat operations are still ongoing against aerial targets that remain in the air.”

Ukrainian state media says there were several people injured including 19 in Kharkiv, including a child. Ukraine accuses Russia of using targeted strikes in an attempt to take out the country’s energy transmission system as winter sets in to undermine national morale and willingness to go on fighting.

Russia, for their part, also complains of being hit back by the country it invaded, and boasts of its own strikes on Ukrainian military targets. Ukraine launched “over 50 projectiles and about 25 drones at Russia’s borderline Belgorod Region” in past day, they say, stating many of these were shot down but some people were injured by falling debris and that buildings were damaged.

One person was killed by a Ukrainian drone strike on Belgorod, the Russian Oblast bordering Ukraine, they claimed. The Kremlin said in a statement on Monday morning: “Air defense systems shot down 8 ballistic missiles, 6 US-made JDAM guided air bombs and 45 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles”.

Russia also alleged a Ukrainian war crime, claiming a Ukrainian drone had repeatedly attacked a Red Cross-marked ambulance, damaging it, and leading to the death of an air raid victim who consequently did not receive medical aid in time. The serious claim by Russian state media was made without corroborating evidence, however.

Governor Vladimir Saldo was cited as having said: “Those who controlled the drone clearly saw that they were striking a car with a red cross. And they did it completely deliberately, with some kind of barbaric mockery”. He said those responsible for the alleged attack would “answer for all of this”.

On Russia’s attacks, Moscow said they had hit Ukraine’s “military airfields” and associated energy infrastructure supporting Ukraine’s war effort over night.

The Russian Ministry of Defence stated: Operational-tactical aviation, strike unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups have damaged the infrastructure of military airfields, energy facilities that ensure the operation of enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine, as well as concentrations of enemy manpower and military equipment in 138 districts”.

Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine has now been underway for over 1,000 days, and after a 2023 characterised by a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive and battlefield stasis otherwise, 2024 has seen a more mobile war. British intelligence digests note Russia’s “tolerance for casualties” and willingness to throw unsophisticated human-wave type attacks at Ukrainian defences has seen Russian territorial advances ‘accelerate’ this year.

The British Ministry of Defence has shown Ukraine slowly losing territory in its Kursk toehold, for instance, but Westminster nevertheless credits Ukraine for its innovative use of drones to run down Russia’s capacity to keep fighting. Of the drone strikes on Russian military warehouses, it stated: “In mid and late September Ukraine struck four Russian strategic ammunition depots hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine.

“The total tonnage of ammunition destroyed across the sites represents the largest loss of Russian, and North Korean supplies, ammunition during the war”.

These attacks underline Russia’s inability to defend its own territory, the Ministry of Defence said.

 

Source link