Russia military likely lacks modern weaponry
Russia’s increasing use of outdated weaponry in a number of deadly attacks may be evidence its military lacks more precise modern weapons, military analysts say.
Russian bombers have been using 1960s-era KH-class missiles, which were primarily designed to target aircraft carriers using a nuclear warhead and are not able to accurately strike ground targets, officials say. The weapons were used in two attacks on a shopping center and apartment building last week resulting in dozens of casualties.
“Russia continues to employ air-launched anti-ship missiles in a secondary land-attack role, likely because of dwindling stockpiles of more accurate modern weapons,” the British defense ministry said on Twitter Saturday.
Both Russia and Ukraine have expended large amounts of weaponry in a grinding war of attrition for the eastern Donbas region. President Joe Biden decided to provide Ukraine with longer-range precision rockets last month, but it’s not clear yet how much of a difference the advanced weapons will make in the stalemate,
“We are going to support Ukraine as long as it takes,” Biden said this week at a news conference during the NATO summit in Madrid. He argued that Russia had already suffered a blow to its international standing and major damage to its economy from Western sanctions imposed over the invasion.
— N’dea Yancey-Bragg
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Latest developments
►Fearing Russia might cut off natural gas, Germany’s top energy official urged property owners to have gas boilers and radiators adjusted to maximize efficiency. Federal Network Agency President Klaus Mueller says families should decide “whether every room needs to be set at its usual temperature” this winter.
Russia claims control of last major city in Luhansk region
Russia claimed Sunday to have overwhelmed the last major city in Ukraine’s Luhansk province as it continues its assault on the battered nation’s eastern Donbas region.
The Russian military and the militia of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic LPR “have established full control over Lysychansk and a number of nearby settlements,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Ukraine’s General Staff of the military reported that its forces had withdrawn from Lysychansk, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the fight for the city was not over.
Lysychansk’s misery comes one week after the sister city of Sievierodonetsk came under complete Russian control following a brutal, weekslong struggle. Completing the invasion of Luhansk would allow Russia to turn its attention to Donetsk, the other province in the industrial Donbas region.
Russia already controls more than half of the Donetsk as well.
— John Bacon
Contributing: The Associated Press