Less than a day after Germany and the USA announced the transfer of dozens of advanced tanks to Ukraine, in what appears to be a breakthrough in the scope of aid after 11 months of war – Putin’s response was not long in coming. Since yesterday evening and this morning (Thursday), Ukraine has been subject to extensive missile attacks Cruise and drones made in Iran. The alarms across Ukraine were activated at least five different times in the last 24 hours, and many explosions were reported in the Kyiv region, Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv and many other areas.Ukrainian President Zelensky last night thanked Germany and the US for the dramatic assistance, and within a few months dozens of Leopard tanks from several countries are expected to move to Kiev. The US has made it clear that it will take many months before the Abrahams tanks arrive in Ukraine, but this is evidence that the West understands that the end of the war is not in sight.
A fighter in the Ukrainian army in the Donetsk region | Photo: Reuters
Ukrainian army in Donetsk region (Photo: Reuters)
Ukrainian army in Donetsk region | Photo: Reuters
Now, just a short time after the announcement of the transfer of the tanks, in Ukraine they are already marking the next target and the types of additional advanced anti-missile weapons they want to receive in order to achieve victory in the war. “Our next hurdle is fighter planes,” said Yuri Sak, assistant to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, in an interview with the Reuters news agency yesterday. In Kiev they make it clear that they want to receive planes F16 and more fighter jets, in anticipation of what they call Russia’s possible decisiveness on the battlefield.
CEO of Lockheed Martin, which manufactures theF16, said in an interview with the Financial Times that the company is already preparing to meet the orders and production requirements for fighter jets for Ukraine. Despite his words, at this point there is no official change in the US position on this matter, and any decision to transfer fighter jets and additional advanced weapons to Kiev will require a clear political decision.
“At first they didn’t want to give us heavy artillery – then they did. They didn’t want to give us systems HIMARS, then they gave. They didn’t want to give us tanks, and now they do. With the exception of nuclear weapons, there is no weaponry that we will not receive from the West,” Sack said. The Politico website reports that there is already an active discussion about transferring planes to Ukraine, and a European diplomat said: “Fighter planes are the next natural step.”
While Ukraine shows satisfaction with the announcements in Berlin and Washington about the transfer of the advanced tanks, in recent times Russia has also been sending the most advanced tanks to the battlefield in Ukraine. Yesterday, British intelligence reported in its daily report that the Russian army has sent a small group of tanks in recent weeks T14 Armata to the battlefield. Despite this, the Russian fighters at the front refused to accept the tanks, as they were reportedly in very poor and problematic condition.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 25 January 2023
Find out more about the UK government’s response: https://t.co/c8as8hYBrr
#StandWithUkrainepic.twitter.com/YiIweSI6hI
— Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) January 25, 2023
The fighting in Ukraine continues, the mass graves of the Wagner group are exposed
The satellite company Max Yesterday published new photos which shed some light on the extent of the losses of the members of the Wagner group in the fighting in Ukraine in recent weeks. The photographs document a cemetery in the Krasnodar region of southwestern Russia, not far from the crossing to the Crimean peninsula, which according to reports is intended for the graves of members of the Wagner group only.
The documentation of the cemetery that was revealed yesterday, shows an increase of hundreds of graves compared to a photograph of the site from the end of November about two months ago. The scope of the cemetery’s expansion takes on new significance because it is a site that is hundreds of kilometers away from the fighting zones in Ukraine. In recent months, members of the Wagner group have been fighting mainly in the Bakhmut and Soldar area of the Donetsk region, and according to reports, they have suffered hundreds and even thousands of casualties in the battles there alone.
Wagner’s fighting in Donetsk shows little about the brutal fighting methods of the private unit owned by the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who spent months recruiting tens of thousands of prison inmates into the unit’s ranks. According to the reports, many prisoners were sent straight to the combat front, without adequate training and equipment – as cannon fodder designed to slow down the progress of the Ukrainian forces. Despite the increase in the number of graves in the cemetery far from the battlefield, it can be assumed that the main amount of the dead remained lying on the battlefield.
Not much later, Russian state-run media filmed Prigozhin laying flowers at the cemetery. Also visible were rows of freshly dug graves, each adorned with wreaths in the shape and colors of Wagner’s logo. pic.twitter.com/WEMKQGtPcH
— Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) January 25, 2023
☠️ The cemetery of the “#Wagner” terrorists in #Russia increased almost 7 times in 2 months, – NYT
The publication notes that a satellite image taken on January 24 shows about 170 burial plots in the area of the cemetery, where #WagnerPMC mercenaries are known to be buried. pic.twitter.com/2QYsSsSfWJ
— Ukraine News (@Ukrainene) January 25, 2023
At the same time, and against the background of preparations in both Russia and Ukraine for a large-scale counterattack in the coming weeks, the fighting continues in eastern and southern Ukraine. After the Russians claimed successes in the fighting in the Zaporizhia region in recent days, yesterday they also reported real progress in the area of the town of Voldar in the Donetsk region, west of the midway between the occupied cities of Mariupol and Donetsk. In the meantime, the reports continue about the advance of the Russian forces, led by Wagner’s men, towards the city of Akhmat.