Russia stationed air defenses over Moscow on Saturday and handed out safe-haven addresses to citizens in Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine, in preparation for New Year’s festivities.
Some 2,000 servicemen will monitor Moscow’s air defenses while “on duty at combat posts on New Year’s Eve,” Russia’s Defense Ministry was quoted as saying by state media TASS.
“In total, during the holiday period and New Year’s weekends, about 20 thousand servicemen of the air defense and anti-missile defense formation of the Aerospace Forces will be on combat duty for the air defense,” the outlet said in Telegram.
Bright decorations set up for the upcoming new year in Moscow, Russia, on December 22, 2022.
(Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
US DID NOT ‘ENCOURAGE OR ENABLE’ UKRAINE TO ATTACK ACROSS RUSSIAN BORDERS: BLINKEN
The ministry did not say whether it assessed that there will be an attack on the capital city as the new year approaches, although according to Ukrainian news outlet Pravda, Russia is also preparing areas along the border with Ukraine.
The Belgorod region, which shares a border with Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast and whose regional capital is roughly 20 miles inland from the border, has suffered several attacks in recent months as Ukrainian forces have pushed the line of the front further east.
According to the Ukrainian media outlet, the Russian authorities have provided residents of the region with maps of shelters in the city in case of further attacks.
Russia accuses Ukraine of being behind the explosion and fire.
(Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
KYIV, LVIV WITHOUT POWER AFTER RUSSIA LAUNCHES ‘MASSIVE’ AIR AND SEA CRUISE MISSILE ATTACK ACROSS UKRAINE
Ukraine drove Russian forces out of Kharkiv in September, and in October Belgorod reportedly began to see an increase in shelling.
The regional governor claimed a massive fire broke out in mid-October after shelling fell on a Russian oil depot.
Shelling in the region killed two people in November and power lines were reportedly damaged in early December.
A police expert holds up a fragment of a drone with a handwritten inscription reading “For Belgorod. For Luch” after a drone strike in Kyiv on October 17, 2022, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
(SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
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Another shelling incident was reported on December 18 in which one person was killed, eight others were injured and a dozen residential buildings were damaged, according to the regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov.
It is unclear whether the incidents in Belgorod were intentional and the Ukrainian government has not publicly commented on the attacks that have targeted various Russian locations, including at least four separate attacks on Russian bases earlier this month.
