Moscow is not going to give an explanation for the missile in Polish airspace until it is provided with “hard evidence” it was Russian, said Andrei Ordash, Russia’s chargé d’affaires in Poland, after being summoned to the Polish foreign ministry.
According to RIA Novosti, a Kremlin-aligned Russian news outlet, Ordash said: “Until hard evidence is provided, we will not give any explanations, because these accusations are unfounded.”
He pointed out the incident in November 2022, when a missile killed two people in a Polish border village.
“Back then, they also tried to blame the Russian side for this incident. Later it turned out that the missile was fired by the Ukrainian military,” Ordash claimed.
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Russia’s Ministry of Defence has hinted at retaliation to Ukraine’s shelling of Belgorod. The number of people killed by a Ukrainian strike in the Russian city of Belgorod has risen to 14, with 108 injured, Russia’s emergencies ministry said on Saturday.
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It appears Ukrainian forces had struck military targets in Belgorod in response to Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities the previous day. At least 39 people were killed in Friday’s strikes, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said. Ukrainian forces have called it the most ferocious airstrike launched by Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
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Russia experienced a sharp rise in the number of killed and wounded troops in 2023, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence. In its daily intelligence briefing, the MoD said the average daily number of Russian casualties (killed and wounded) had risen by almost 300 a day compared with 2022.
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Moscow is not going to give an explanation for a missile in Polish airspace until it is provided with “hard evidence” it was Russian, said Andrei Ordash, Russia’s chargé d’affaires in Poland, after being summoned to the Polish foreign ministry. Poland’s armed forces said an unknown airborne object, which they identified as a Russian missile, entered the country’s airspace from the direction of Ukraine for less than three minutes.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence has hinted at retaliation over Ukraine’s shelling of Belgorod.
The ministry said in a statement: “The Kyiv regime, which committed this crime, is trying to distract attention from defeats at the front, and also provoke us to similar actions.
“We emphasize that the Russian armed forces work only on military facilities and infrastructure directly related to them.
“We will continue to do so. This crime will not go unpunished.”
The Ukrainian news outlet RBC-Ukraine quoted sources as saying Ukrainian forces had struck military targets in Belgorod in response to Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities the previous day.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in what it calls a “special military operation”, unleashed its biggest air attack of the war on Friday.
The number of people killed by a Ukrainian strike in the Russian city of Belgorod has risen to 14, with 108 injured, Russia’s emergencies ministry said on Saturday.
“According to updated information, 12 adults and two children were killed in Belgorod. Another 108 people, including 15 children, were injured,” the ministry said.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has been briefed about a Ukrainian strike on the Russian city of Belgorod that killed at least 10 people, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
“President Vladimir Putin has been informed about the Ukrainian armed forces’ strike on residential neighbourhoods in Belgorod,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS news agency.
Peskov added that the president ordered a Russian health ministry team led by Minister Mikhail Murashko and emergencies ministry’s rescuers to the city to help those affected.
Ten people including a child were killed and 45 injured by Ukrainian strikes on the centre of the Russian provincial capital of Belgorod on Saturday, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said.
The regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said a residential area had been hit, and in a Telegram posting urged all residents to move to air raid shelters as sirens sounded around the city.
The Belgorod region, which adjoins northern Ukraine, has like other Russian border zones suffered shelling and drone attacks all year that authorities have blamed on Ukraine.
Images posted by the state-run RIA news agency showed at least three cars on fire, and other images posted online showed black smoke rising from the city.
Two residents told Reuters they had seen air defence missiles rising into the sky followed by explosions in the air and then louder blasts.
The Kommersant newspaper cited a source close to the Russian Investigative Committee as saying missiles fired from a multiple rocket launcher in Ukraine’s Kharkov region had hit a skating rink on the central Cathedral Square, a shopping centre, residential buildings and a car.
No official comment was immediately available from Kyiv, which rarely claims responsibility for attacks inside its neighbour.
At least 39 people were killed in Friday’s strikes, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said.
“Work is still underway to eliminate the consequences of yesterday’s Russian attack,” he wrote in a post on social media Saturday.
“In total, 159 people were injured in this terrorist attack. Unfortunately, 39 of them have been killed so far,” he said.
There will be no fireworks in Moscow again this year on Russia’s biggest family holiday, but in almost every other way, the capital is as bright and bustling as at any new year before the war in Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Last year, the fallout of what Russia calls its “special military operation”, which had begun 10 months earlier, and a military call-up dented Muscovites’ appetite for entertainment. This year, only soaring prices are dampening the celebrations.
“Last year we bought a two-metre fir tree [for New Year] and it cost 10,000 roubles [$110],” said Viktorina Petrova, visiting the Moscow Circus. “This year it costs 17,000 roubles. So we decided not to have a real fir tree at home this year.”
Bookings for corporate parties and events at the Riesling Boyz bar, which were almost absent last year, have picked up again, said co-owner Georgy Karpenko.
The Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin said a background of sharply rising prices - inflation is running at about 7% - and economic growth fuelled by a war with no end in sight were influencing spending.
“This kind of outlook, suggesting things are kind of OK right now and nothing good is likely to happen later, of course encourages spending rather than saving,” she said.
Two children were killed and several people were injured as a result of a Ukrainian strike on the centre of the Russian provincial capital of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Saturday.
Gladkov said a residential area had been hit, in a post on Telegram.
He said: “The Ukrainian armed forces shelled the centre of Belgorod. According to preliminary information, there are two dead children and injured. There is also a hit in the residential sector. All details later”
Russia experienced a sharp rise in the number of killed and wounded troops in 2023, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence.
In its daily intelligence briefing, the MoD said the average daily number of Russian casualties (killed and wounded) had risen by almost 300 a day compared with 2022.
It added:
The increase in daily averages, as reported by the Ukrainian authorities, almost certainly reflects the degradation of Russia’s forces and its transition to a lower quality, high quantity mass army since the “partial mobilisation” of reservists in September 2022.
It will likely take Russia five to 10 years to rebuild a cohort of highly trained and experienced military units.
If casualties continue at the current rate through the next year, by 2025 Russia will have sustained over half a million personnel killed and wounded over three years of war. This is compared to the Soviet Union’s 70,000 casualties in the nine-year Soviet-Afghan war.
Thirty-two Ukrainian drones were shot down over Russia, Moscow officials reported, a day after an 18-hour aerial barrage across Ukraine killed at least 32 civilians.
Drones were seen in the skies over the Moscow, Bryansk, Oryol and Kursk regions on Saturday, the country’s defence ministry said in a statement. It said all of the drones had been destroyed by air defences.
Russian drone strikes against Ukraine also continued, with the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces reporting that 10 Iranian-made Shahed drones had been shot down across the Kherson, Khmelnytskyi and Mykolaiv regions on Saturday.
The Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said yesterday’s attack was the deadliest one yet for Kyiv in terms of civilian casualties.
Posting on Telegram, Klitschko said: “The attack on the capital on 29 December was the largest in terms of the number of victims among peaceful residents of the capital.
“At this time, 16 bodies were recovered from the rubble of a warehouse in the Shevchenkiv district. Rescuers continue to work and will clear the rubble until tomorrow.”
Klitschko said that 1 January will be declared a day of mourning in Kyiv.
On Saturday morning the governor of the Bryansk region in Russia, adjoining Ukraine, said a child had been killed in strikes on “civilian objects” in two villages. Alexander Bogomaz did not specify when the attacks took place.
Bogomaz wrote on Telegram: “Ukrainian terrorists shelled the villages of Kister and Borshchovo, Pogarsky district.
“More than 10 shells were fired from MLRS at civilian targets. Unfortunately, a child born in 2014 died as a result of a terrorist attack. I express my sincere condolences to the family of the deceased. All necessary assistance to the family will be provided.”
The Russian military also said it had destroyed a Ukrainian maritime drone moving towards the Crimean peninsula.
December 30, 2023 at 03:09PM
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Moscow wants ‘hard evidence’ missile in Poland was Russian before giving explanation – as it happened - The Guardian
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