The Russian army announced this Sunday that it had destroyed a field with “more than 100,000 tons” of fuel after bombing the Ukrainian region of Cherkasy, in the center-east of the country, according to an official source.
The attack took place precisely in the village of Smela, General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the army, said in a statement to Interfax quoted by Europa Press.
The official announced the destruction in the city of Alekseevka of an oil depot with diesel fuel for military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Also, five more ammunition depots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in several regions were destroyed, as well as six missiles of the American system of increased mobility “Himars” and anti-radar missile “Kharm” near the Kherson region in the east of the country.
According to local authorities, in the border regions of Kursk and Belgorod and in the Lugansk region annexed by Ukraine, Russia has begun building defensive lines.
“This week, work was completed on staffing and building two reinforced defense lines in the Kursk region,” Roman Starovoit, governor of the Kursk region, bordering the Ukrainian region, from Sumy wrote today in his Telegram message channel.
Showing photos, the official showed the work carried out, including digging a trench for the third line of defense, which should be ready on November 5.
“We are ready to repeat any invasion of our territory,” he said.
On Saturday, the governor of the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, released images of anti-tank defenses resembling “dragon’s teeth,” pyramidal cement blocks used during World War II to stop the advance of mechanized brigades.
These defense lines join those the Wagner group is building in Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine, with excavations and dragon’s teeth nicknamed the “Prigozhin Line” or the “Wagner Line.”
British intelligence said in its review today that the project suggests that Russia is “making a significant effort to prepare a defense in depth behind the current front line that will likely preclude any rapid Ukrainian counter-offensive.”
London points out that if the maps for the construction of defense lines are as accurate as Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner group, claims, “it is likely that the work will tend to integrate the Seversky Donets River into a defensive zone, partly along the 2015 line of control.”
The US Institute for the Study of War, for its part, argued in a report today that Russian maps show that the extension of the “Wagner Line” proposed by Prizogin will protect the border between the Russian Belgorod region and the Ukrainian provinces of Sumy. , Kharkiv and Lugansk.
But he adds that he will not be able to cover northern Luhansk, contrary to the Kremlin’s promises to protect the entire annexed region, just enough to cover territory already controlled by Russia before the February invasion.
Putin has repeatedly consulted with Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu about the invasion, Europa Press told Ukraine’s chief intelligence director Vadim Skibitsky.
According to Skibitsky, it was the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is responsible for counterintelligence and espionage work, that put pressure on Gerasimov and other military agencies to agree to launch an offensive. .
However, according to the Ukrainian intelligence services, the FSB considered that by the end of February sufficient preparations had already been made to guarantee the success of the Russian Armed Forces in a lightning invasion.
However, according to Kyiv, the Russian General Staff provided the Russian troops with supplies and ammunition for only three days, hoping that the offensive would be swift and immediately successful.
The head of Ukrainian intelligence also emphasized the cooperation of local residents, who always provided the Ukrainian authorities with up-to-date information about the Russian army, such as the number of soldiers or the exact location of troops.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine caused at least 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million refugees to European countries, which is why the UN classifies this migration crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). gg.). ).
At the moment, 17.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 9.3 million are in need of food aid and housing.
The UN has presented as confirmed 6,755 civilian deaths and 10,607 wounded since the beginning of the war, stressing that these figures are much lower than the real ones.
A Stockholm court on Monday sentenced a former Swedish intelligence officer to life in prison for spying for Russia, and his brother to at least 12 years in prison. In what is considered one of the most serious cases in Swedish counterintelligence history, much of the trial took place behind closed doors in the name of national security.
According to the prosecution, it was Russian military intelligence, the GRU, who took advantage of the information provided by the two brothers between 2011 and their arrest at the end of 2021.
Peyman Kia, 42, has held many senior positions in the Swedish security apparatus, including the army and his country’s intelligence services (Säpo). His younger brother, Payam, 35, is accused of “participating in the planning” of the plot and of “managing contacts with Russia and the GRU, including passing on information and receiving financial rewards.”
Both men deny the charges, and their lawyers have demanded an acquittal on charges of “aggravated espionage,” according to the Swedish news agency TT.
The trial coincides with another case of alleged Russian espionage, with the arrest of the Russian-born couple in late November in a suburb of Stockholm by a police team arriving at dawn in a Blackhawk helicopter.
Research website Bellingcat identified them as Sergei Skvortsov and Elena Kulkova. The couple allegedly acted as sleeper agents for Moscow, having moved to Sweden in the late 1990s.
According to Swedish press reports, the couple ran companies specializing in the import and export of electronic components and industrial technology.
The man was again detained at the end of November for “illegal intelligence activities.” His partner, suspected of being an accomplice, has been released but remains under investigation.
According to Swedish authorities, the arrests are not related to the trial of the Kia brothers.
“They can strengthen their positions. We understand that this can happen. At the same time, we do not rule out that they will announce a general mobilization,” Danilov said in an interview with the Ukrainska Pravda online publication.
Danilov believed that this mobilization would also be convened “to exterminate as many as possible” of Russian citizens, so that “they would no longer have any problems on their territory.”
In this sense, Danilov also reminded that Russia has not given up on securing control over Kyiv or the idea of the complete “destruction” of Ukraine. “We have to be ready for anything,” he said.
“I want everyone to understand that [os russos] they have not given up on the idea of destroying our nation. If they don’t have Kyiv in their hands, they won’t have anything in their hands, we must understand this,” continued Danilov, who also did not rule out that a new Russian offensive would come from “Belarus and other territories.” .
As such, Danilov praised the decision of many of its residents who chose to stay in the Ukrainian capital when the war broke out in order to defend the city.
“They expected that there would be panic, that people would run, that there would be nothing to protect Kyiv,” he added, referring to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine caused at least 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million refugees to European countries, which is why the UN classifies this migration crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). gg.). ).
At the moment, 17.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 9.3 million are in need of food aid and housing.
The Russian invasion, justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security, was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing political and economic sanctions on Russia.
The UN has presented as confirmed 6,755 civilian deaths and 10,607 wounded since the beginning of the war, stressing that these figures are much lower than the real ones.
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