Russia's Territorial Expansion in Ukraine
"[Russia is] terrorizing millions of people [with such assaults -- Friday's massive aerial attacks].""A strong reaction from the world is needed: a massive strike -- a massive reaction.""This is the only way to stop terror.""[In some regions, Kalibr cruise missiles with cluster munitions smashed into civilian targets] an insidious escalation."Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy"[The western Ivano-Frankivsk region suffered] the biggest attack since the beginning of the full-scale war], from cruise missiles and drones.""As Ukrainians wake to the coldest day of the winter so far, the enemy tries to break our spirit with this cynical terrorist attack.""Right now, multiple DTEK teams are urgently assessing damage to our power stations and deploying all possible resources to restoring power for the people of Ukraine."Maxim Timchenko, CEO, private energy company DTEK"[Trump's stance -- against allowing Ukraine to use the U.S.-supplied Army7 Tactical Missile System on a Russian airbase] conforms to our position.""In this case, we have a shared vision of causes of escalation and that is positive.""Obviously, Trump realizes what escalates the conflict."Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
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| Firefighters putting out a fire in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine, following a mass Russian aerial attack on Dec. 13, 2024. (State Emergency Service/Telegram) |
Russia fired 93 cruise and ballistic missiles and close to 200 drones in a massive aerial attack on Ukraine Friday. An attack that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky characterized as one of the heavies bombardments threatening Ukraine's energy sector since Russia launched its full-scale invasion close to three years ago. This then will be the third winter that Ukrainian citizens face with tenuous and haphazard heating and water availability as they freeze in the dark this winter, while Ukrainian energy companies frenetically work to restore power.
And while Ukraine's military has been successful to an amazing degree in its counteroffensive in defense of its sovereignty and citizenry, hitting back wherever and whenever its strategic opportunities arise, including into Russia itself, Moscow likes to call Ukrainian defences 'escalation'. The Kremlin's push to advantage Greater Russia's territorial ambitions and Vladimir Putin's intentions of restoring a semblance of Soviet power by victimizing Ukraine remains the single greatest war crime in Europe since World War II.
Of the missiles, including 11 cruise missiles Ukrainian defences shot down 81, intercepting them with F-16 warplanes that Western allies provided to Ukraine earlier in 2024. How the ongoing war with its near-stalemate conditions might unfold in the coming year is bemusing war experts, with the prospect of the incoming new President Trump on January 20 withdrawing U.S. material support in favour of negotiating a 'they can't say no' ceasefire and war's end, at Ukraine's expense.
Moscow to be rewarded for its violent aggression that has caused the death of tens of thousands on both sides, the displacement of millions of civilians, Ukrainian refugees finding shelter abroad, and the wholesale destruction of significant parts of Ukrainian cities, towns and villages. Russia's war crimes in bombing shopping centres, schools, hospitals, apartment complexes, placing civilian enclaves in the bulls'-eye of the conflict rewarded by retaining the one-fifth of Ukrainian territory Russia now claims.
As though expansionist power-hungry Russia can be trusted not to return at some later date to once more invade Ukraine. As though it would be satisfied with the Crimean Peninsula, Donetsk,, Kherson, Luhansk, Mykolayiv, and Zaporizhzhya Oblasts. Once it completes its territorial control of whatever more it lusts after to complete its expansion of the Russian Federation, it could then turn its attention to the Baltic nations, despite NATO having preventively stationed troops in those regions.
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| Servicemen of the 24th Mechanised Brigade fire a 2s1 self-propelled 122mm howitzer towards Russian positions near Chasiv Yar town, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (Oleg Petrasiuk/Ukrainian 24th Mechanised Brigade via AP) |
Withholding further munitions and war machinery so critical to Ukraine's capacity to respond to the Russian military on its soil, would leave Ukraine with little choice but to grudgingly agree to surrender the territories that Moscow has illegally wrenched away at great cost in lives and property. Essentially handing to Vladimir Putin the rewards he feels are owing him for his power-hungry ambitions to be temporarily satisfied before he turns his attention to others in his near-abroad.
Moscow's Defence Ministry claimed the use of long-range precision missiles and drones on "critically important fuel and energy facilities in Ukraine that ensure the functioning of the military industrial complex". As though Ukraine is the aggressor and the Kremlin is the stalwart upholder of world order in facing off against a threat to world peace exemplified by Kyiv's determination to defend itself, and by extension, all of Eastern Europe.
According to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, the attacks of Friday targeted transport networks and other key facilities as well as the energy sectors. DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy provider, admitted the attack "seriously damaged" its thermal power plants. In attempts to break the will of Ukrainian civilians coping in the dark without running water or winter heating, while disrupting Ukrainian defence manufacturing, this is Russia's calculated winter season strategy of attack.
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| A worker looks up as they repair equipment at a thermal power plant damaged in an earlier missile attack Photograph: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images |
Labels: Costly War's End for Ukraine, Incoming US President, Russian Invasion of Ukraine
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, December 17, 2024
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