Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Kyiv has obtained intelligence suggesting Russia is planning a protracted attack using Iranian-supplied Shahed drones.
In a late-night speech on Monday, Zelenskyy warned that in the two days since the world welcomed 2023, Ukraine has stopped more than 80 drone strikes.
“We have information that Russia is planning a prolonged attack with Shaheds,” he said.
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a residential building destroyed by a Russian drone strike, considered by local authorities to be an Iranian-made Shahed-136 unmanned aerial vehicle, in central Kyiv, Ukraine, on October 17, 2022.
(Photo by Oleksii Chumachenko/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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Zelenskyy said Russia seeks to exhaust “our people, our air defense, our energy sector” by constantly hitting the country with airstrikes, a strategy Moscow has been employing for months but intensifying as winter approaches.
“Now is the time when everyone involved in the protection of the sky should be especially vigilant,” he said, addressing the Ukrainian pilots and air defense officers.
“Our task is to give Ukraine success every day,” he continued. “Every drone shot down, every missile shot down, every day with power for our people and minimal blackout times are exactly those victories.”
People look at the residential building destroyed by a Russian drone strike. At least four people died as a result of a drone strike on a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, on the morning of October 17, 2022.
(Photo by Oleksii Chumachenko/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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Moscow and Tehran, Iran have repeatedly denied any drone association or the use of Iranian-supplied drones in Ukraine despite evidence provided by Kyiv and endorsed by Western defense officials.
Zelenskyy urged his forces on the front lines, particularly those fighting in areas like Bakhmut, which has suffered from an intense ground war for months, to continue to hold the line amid harsh winter conditions, which has likely slowed the fighting. in other areas like Kherson.
“No matter how difficult it is now, we must endure it. To make it easier at the end of this winter,” he said.
Parts of the Orlan-10, Granat-3, Shahed-136 and Eleron-3-SV unmanned aerial vehicles, used by Russia against Ukraine, are seen during a news conference of the Ukrainian Defense and Security Forces in Kyiv , Ukraine, on December 12. February 15, 2022, in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Representatives of the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine held a press conference on the situation of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the security situation in Ukraine.
(Photo by STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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Ukrainian forces continued to push the lines east in areas such as Donetsk, and fighting began to intensify in the Donbas region, where Russian-backed forces have fought since 2014.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, defended this week that the Ukrainian forces have liberated 40% of the territory that Russia occupied after its invasion.
Zaluahnyi also said that in the regions where Russian forces remain, Moscow has lost about 28% of the land.
