Zelenskyy warns of drawn-out drone campaign – DW – 01/03/2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Russia was planning a protracted campaign of drone attacks in a bid to demoralize Ukraine.
“We have information that Russia is planning a long-term attack by Shahed drones,” Zelenskyy said, referring to the Iranian-made drones.
He said Russia wanted to use drones to achieve attrition, “the exhaustion of our people, our air defenses, our energy.”
He added Ukraine had to “act and do everything so that the terrorists fail in their aim, as all their others have failed.”
In the past few days, Russia has deployed multiple exploding drones to target civilian infrastructure.
This has led to power cuts that were also affecting the provision of heating.
Zelenskyy said the country’s forces shot down more than 80 drones since the start of 2023.
Russia, in turn, reported multiple drone attacks, with one hitting energy infrastructure in the Russian region of Bryansk and causing a town to lose power.
Two Ukrainian drones were also shot down over the naval port of Sevastopol in the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
Sevastopol is the main base for the Russian Black Sea Fleet and has previously been targeted by Ukrainian drone attacks.
Here are the other main headlines from the war in Ukraine on Tuesday, January 3:
Ukrainian police say they discover torture camps in liberated Kharkiv
Ukrainian authorities said they have found 25 torture camps in the area surrounding Kharkiv since its liberation from Russian occupation.
According to the regional police chief, Volodymyr Timoshko, Russian troops detained and tortured civilians in the camps.
In a Facebook post, he wrote some prisoners had been subjected to electric shocks, and others had their fingers broken.
DW was unable to verify the claims independently.
Russian troops occupied the area around Kharkiv for several months, but they withdrew in September following a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Since the liberation of the region, 920 bodies of civilians, including 25 children, have been found. The police chief alleges that Russian soldiers killed them.
EU-Ukraine summit to take place in Kyiv
The leaders of the European Union and Ukraine would meet in Kyiv instead of Brussels in February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office announced late on Monday.
The leaders would discuss financial and military support during the EU-Ukraine summit on February 3.
The meeting will not be attended by the EU heads of state and government, but only by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President Charles Michel. This had already been announced by a spokesperson for Michel in December.
Zelenskyy discussed details of the high-level meeting with von der Leyen in his first phone call of the year, the statement said.
In turn, von der Leyen vowed the EU would “continue our strong financial assistance.”
They also discussed the situation on the front and Ukraine’s progress toward EU membership.
More on the Russia-Ukraine war
DW’s Roman Goncharenko reports Russia was expected to retaliate after a Ukrainian strike on a building in the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Makiivka killed 63 Russian soldiers.
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht came under fire on Monday for what has been considered a tone-deaf video published on her social media account. She was slammed for discussing the war in Ukraine as people set off New Year’s fireworks.
Some 4.8 million people were registered as temporary protection seekers in Europe by the UN Refugee Agency through early December. Next year could see even more significant numbers of refugees depending on the course of the war in Ukraine.
lo/sri (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)