Dec 24
At least five people have been killed in a Christmas Eve strike on the centre of Kherson, which left bodies littering the streets amid scenes of devastation during the holiday period.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said Russia had intentionally fired at civilian targets to “intimidate” the Ukrainian population in the recently liberated city.
“In the morning, on Saturday, on the eve of Christmas, in the central part of the city,” Mr Zelensky said as he published graphic pictures of the aftermath.
“These are not military facilities. This is not a war according to the rules defined. It is terror, it is killing for the sake of intimidation and pleasure,” he said.
The images from the scene showed cars on fire and bodies scattered across the pavements, some bloodied and twisted from the impact of the bombs.
Witnesses were seen with hands to their mouths as they surveyed the aftermath in shock, while medics hurried the injured into ambulances on stretchers.
Missiles hit busy Kherson Saturday market
At least 20 people are said to be injured in the strike on central Kherson as more details emerge from the scene.
On the day marking ten months since the beginning of the war, a string of shelling rained down around a busy Saturday market, where a fire erupted.
AFP journalists at the scene saw several bodies laying on the ground, including a man killed in his car near the market.
Another man, whose car had been blown up, had severe head injuries.
“We know of at least five dead and 20 injured,” the Deputy Head of Presidency Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Telegram.
Despite Russia’s retreat from the southern port city in November, Kherson remains within reach of Moscow’s weaponry and under constant threat.
On December 15, Russian shelling killed two people including a Red Cross worker in Kherson and completely cut power in the southern city.
Iranian kamikaze drone factories ‘must be liquidated’
Iranian factories making drones and missiles for Russia should be “liquidated” and suppliers arrested, a top adviser to Ukraine’s president has said as Kyiv accused Tehran of planning to supply more weapons.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Volodymyr Zelensky, said Iran “blatantly humiliates the institution of international sanctions”, before calling for the destruction of Iranian weapon factories in response.
Kyiv has accused Tehran of supplying 1,700 Shahed-136 kamikaze drones to Moscow, which it says have been used to hit targets in Ukraine since September. Iran denies the allegations.
Ukraine’s spy chief said in an interview released on Friday that Russia had already launched around 540 of the drones at military and energy targets in Ukraine.
Russia can only hit Ukraine with long-range missiles once a week
Russia can only sustain long-range missile attacks on Ukraine once a week as munitions supplies dwindle, the British Ministry of Defence estimates.
In its daily update the MoD also said Russia barely has enough short-range shells to hold its front line with Ukraine
The MoD said: “Russia has likely limited its long-range missile strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure to around once a week due to the limited availability of cruise missiles.”
It added that Russia’s limited artillery stockpile means that “large-scale offensive operations” are unlikely.
“A vulnerability of Russia’s current operational design is that even just sustaining defensive operations along its lengthy front line requires a significant daily expenditure of shells and rockets,” the MoD said.
US says Putin must pull out of Ukraine after Russian leader called conflict ‘war’ for first time
The United States on Friday derisively called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to acknowledge reality and pull troops from Ukraine after he finally called the conflict a “war.”
Since Putin ordered the invasion in February, Russia has officially spoken of a “special military operation” and imposed a law that criminalizes what authorities call misleading terminology.
But at a news conference on Thursday, Putin himself used the word “war” as he said that he hoped to end it as soon as possible.
“Since February 24, the United States and rest of the world knew that Putin’s ‘special military operation’ was an unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine. Finally, after 300 days, Putin called the war what it is,” a State Department spokesperson said.
“As a next step in acknowledging reality, we urge him to end this war by withdrawing his forces from Ukraine.
A Russian court earlier this month sentenced an opposition politician, Ilya Yashin, to eight and a half years in prison under the new law over his “false information” about the war.
Zelensky thanks the British people for support as Rishi Sunak posts touching Ukraine video
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has sent Christmas wishes to the UK, as he thanked Rishi Sunak and the British public for their support in the country’s fight against Russia.
Earlier, the Prime Minister had tweeted a short video with the message: “This Christmas, we’re with you Ukraine.”
Another 100,000 orc motherfuckers need to be burning in hell for these atrocities.
Nazi RuZZia must be extirpated.
“Iranian factories making drones and missiles for Russia should be “liquidated” and suppliers arrested, a top adviser to Ukraine’s president has said as Kyiv accused Tehran of planning to supply more weapons.”
The West has proven to be much too weak to make much of a difference. It has the might to stop such trash countries, mind you, but it doesn’t have the gallantry.