WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine to get more armoured vehicles but presses for tanks to fight Russia
Western allies moved toward supplying armoured battle vehicles to Ukraine but not the heavier tanks it has requested to fight Russia, while Washington predicted intense combat would continue for months on the eastern frontline.
French President Emmanuel Macron told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy his government would send light AMX-10 RC armoured combat vehicles to help its war effort, a French official said on Wednesday after a phone call between them.
While the official said these would be the first Western armoured vehicles delivered to Ukraine, Australia said in October that it had given Kyiv 90 of its Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles, an armoured unit that is hardened against landmines, small arms fire and other threats.
U.S. President Joe Biden said later on Wednesday that Washington was considering sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine, which since Russia's invasion in February has been fighting Europe's biggest land conflict since 1945. Cities have been destroyed, millions of people displaced and tens of thousands killed.
The Bradley armoured vehicle, which has a powerful gun, has been a U.S. Army staple to carry troops around battlefields since the mid-1980s. The U.S. Army has thousands of Bradleys, and they would give Ukraine more firepower on the battlefield and strengthen its ability in trench warfare.
Biden's move, however, would fall short of sending the Abrams tanks that Ukraine has sought. Kyiv has repeatedly asked Western allies for heavier fighting vehicles such as the Abrams and German-made Leopard tanks.
In an evening video address, Zelenskiy thanked Macron for the announcement and said it showed the need for other allies to provide heavier weapons.
"This is something that sends a clear signal to all our partners. There is no rational reason why Ukraine has not yet been supplied with Western tanks," he said.
FIGHTING IN EAST
A senior U.S. administration official on Wednesday gave a sobering assessment of fighting in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, especially around the largely ruined, Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut. Fierce combat is likely to persist for the foreseeable future, although Russian forces have made incremental progress, the official said.
"The fighting is still quite hot ... I think what we're seeing in Bakhmut we should expect to see elsewhere along the front that there will be continued fighting in the coming months."
In his video address, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops outside Bakhmut were inflicting numerous losses on the Russians and said Moscow was building up its forces in the region.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield accounts.
RUSSIA SENDS FRIGATE
Zelenskiy last month told the U.S. Congress that the tens of billions of dollars of U.S. aid to help it combat Russia's invasion was not charity, but an investment in global security.
The United States is preparing another weapons aid package which could be announced in the coming days on top of about $21.3 billion in security assistance so far to Ukraine.
The United States has increased the capability of the weapons it has sent including shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles as well as Javelin anti-tank missiles, the HIMARS rocket system and NASAMS surface-to-air missiles.
During Zelenskiy's visit to Washington, the United States pledged to send the sophisticated Patriot missile system to repel Russian missile and drone attacks.
An official from the Ukrainian defence ministry's intelligence section, Andriy Cherniak, said in comments to the RBC-Ukraine media outlet that Kyiv expected no let-up in Russia's offensive this year despite the heavy human toll.
"According to Ukrainian military intelligence estimates, in the next four-five months the Russian army may lose up to 70,000 people. And the occupying country's (Russia's) leadership is ready for such losses," Cherniak said.
Russian leaders "understand they will lose but they do not plan to end the war", he said.
In a signal to the West that Russia will not back down over Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a frigate on Wednesday to the Atlantic Ocean armed with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles, which can travel at more than five times the speed of sound.
Ukraine said Russia had launched seven missile strikes, 18 air strikes and more than 85 attacks from multiple-launch rocket systems in the past 24 hours on civilian infrastructure in the cities of Kramatorsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Russia denies deliberately attacking civilians.
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said Russia would continue to form additional assault units and focus on the capture of Bakhmut and other cities to the north of Donetsk.
Malyar, citing the ministry's main intelligence directorate, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that significant Russian losses meant Moscow would most likely have to announce a second partial mobilisation in the first quarter of the year.
Russia launched what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine on Feb. 24, citing threats to its own security and a need to protect Russian speakers. Ukraine and its allies accuse Russia of an unprovoked war to seize territory.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Russian drones far cheaper than Ukrainian air defenses
The fact that the smaller kamikaze drones used by Russia are much cheaper than the Ukrainian air defense missiles used against them is creating problems for Kiev and its Western backers, the New York Times has acknowledged.
In an article on Tuesday, the paper didn’t question Kiev’s claims that most of the UAVs launched by Russia are being shot down, but pointed out that even in this case Ukrainian air defense stocks were being exhausted.
“How long can Ukraine sustain its effort when many of its defensive measures cost far more than the drones do?” the NYT wondered.
In addition to trying to destroy the incoming drones with anti-aircraft guns and small-arms fire, Kiev’s forces have “also relied heavily on missiles fired from warplanes and the ground,” which are very expensive, it wrote.
The paper cited the head of the Ukrainian consultancy Molfar, Artem Starosiek, who claimed that using a missile against a UAV costs up to seven times more than the drone itself. The drones that Russia uses are priced at around $20,000 per unit, while a surface-to-air missile from Ukraine’s arsenal ranges from $140,000 for a Soviet-era S-300 to $500,000 for a US-supplied NASAM system, he said.
The article claims that the drones used by Russia in Ukraine are Shahed-136s, supplied by Iran. This claim has been denied by both Moscow and Tehran on many occasions. The Russian Defense Ministry insists that its Geran-2 drones are domestically made, just like all the other hardware used in the military operation against Kiev. The Iranian Foreign Ministry has only confirmed sending a small batch of drones to Russia before the outbreak of the conflict with Ukraine, stressing that no new deliveries have been made since then.
Starosiek nevertheless defended Kiev’s strategy, arguing that it still “costs far less to shoot down a drone than to repair a damaged or destroyed power station.”
However, the NYT warned that the price difference between drones and air defenses was “an imbalance that could over time favor Russia, costing Ukraine and its allies dearly, some analysts say.”
According to estimations by Molfar, Russia has targeted Ukrainian military infrastructure and energy systems with some 600 UAVs since September, when they began to be used more widely.
Russia drastically ramped up its strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure in early October in response to repeated Ukrainian sabotage on Russian soil, including the bombing of the Crimean Bridge, which Moscow blamed on Kiev. Although the attack was widely cheered by top Ukrainian officials, Kiev has denied any involvement.
** Russian forces destroy five Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group in DPR, LPR
The Russian armed forces destroyed five Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR, LPR), Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday.
"Five enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups were destroyed in the areas of the settlements of Nevskoye in the Lugansk People's Republic, Novovodyanoye, Serebryanka and Belogorovka in the Donetsk People's Republic," he said.
He added that Russian troops continue their offensive in the direction of Donetsk, more than 100 servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (APU) were eliminated in a day.
Russian troops destroyed three 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions, Konashenkov added. "In the areas of the settlement of Pokalyanoye in the Kharkov region, and the city of Orekhov in the Zaporozhye region, three 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers were destroyed at firing positions," Konashenkov said.
Russia’s forces destroy five artillery ammunition warehouses in DPR, Zaporozhye region
"In the areas of the settlements of Orekhov in the Zaporozhye region, Dibrova and Konstantinovka in the Donetsk People's Republic, five warehouses of artillery ammunition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed," Konashenkov said.
In addition, a warehouse of rocket and artillery weapons of a foreign mercenary unit was destroyed near the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk People's Republic.
Russian air defense systems over the past day destroyed six Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). "Over the day, air defense systems destroyed six Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in the areas of the settlements of Zeleny Gai in the Zaporozhye region, Blagoveshchenka, Petrovka, Kirillovka in the Donetsk People's Republic and Kremennaya in the Lugansk People's Republic," Konashenkov said.
He added that the Russian forces destroyed two US-made AN/TPQ-50 counterfire radars over the past day.
In total, according to Konashenkov, the following have been destroyed since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation: 357 aircraft, 199 helicopters, 2,813 UAVs, 399 anti-aircraft missile systems, 7,408 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 968 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 3,772 field artillery guns and mortar, as well as 7,920 units of special military vehicles.
Russia’s Aerospace Forces shot down Ukrainian MiG-29, Su-25 aircraft
"Fighter aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces shot down MiG-29 and Su-25 aircraft of the Air Forces of Ukraine in the area of the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk People's Republic and the settlement of Novopavlovka in the Nikolaev region," he said.
Russian air defense systems also destroyed six Ukrainian UAVs.
Reuters/RT/TASS
