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Russia could ‘try something’ to mark 24 February anniversary of invasion, says Ukrainian official
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Vladimir Putin on Thursday marked the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi forces in the battle of Stalingrad, and invoked the battle as justification for the conflict in Ukraine.
Putin laid a wreath at the eternal flame of the memorial complex to the fallen Red Army soldiers in Volgograd, the current name of the city, and criticised Germany’s decision to help arm Ukraine.
He told an audience of army officers and members of local patriotic and youth groups: “Unfortunately we see that the ideology of Nazism in its modern form and manifestation again directly threatens the security of our country.”
It comes as the Russian president has mobilised nearly 500,000 troops to attack Ukraine in a renewed offensive marking the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov has said.
Putin had asked for 300,000 Russian men to be enrolled in a general mobilisation in September, but Mr Reznikov told the French BFM network last night that the actual number of conscripts deployed to fight in Ukraine could be much more.
Volodymyr Zelensky further asserted this claim and said that Ukraine is seeing “a certain increase in the occupier’s offensive actions at the front – in the east of our country”.
Vladimir Putin is likely preparing a major new offensive and could strike Ukraine around the one-year anniversary of the war on 24 February, Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said in his latest remarks.
Russia has amassed nearly 500,000 troops for the attack, Ukrainian intelligence indicates.
Mr Reznikov said that Russia has many more new troops than just their officially announced count of 300,000 from the first wave of mobilisation in September.
“Officially they announced 300,000 but when we see the troops at the borders, according to our assessments it is much more,” he told the French BFM network.
Moscow could “try something” to mark the invasion’s first year on 24 February, the minister added, suggesting a grim new chapter in the continuing war.
However, he added that Ukrainian commanders and forces will move to “stabilise the front and prepare for a counter-offensive” ahead of the anticipated Russian advance.
Mr Reznikov said he has “faith that the year 2023 can be the year of military victory,” and that the Ukrainian forces “cannot lose the initiative” they have gained in recent months.
More than £400m has been donated to UK charities to help people in Ukraine.
As a result, the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has become the biggest charity donor to the response inside Ukraine, and to the regional refugee response, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The UK government match-funded £25m of public donations to the DEC’s Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal, its largest-ever commitment through UK Aid Match.
DEC brings together 15 leading UK aid charities
Former president Donald Trump on Thursday suggested ending military aid to Ukraine would bring an end to the year-old war by encouraging negotiations that could be led by the United States.
Mr Trump made the bizarre claim during an interview with right-wing talk show host Hugh Hewitt for his eponymous radio programme when Hewitt asked if the US should be sending Ukraine’s defence forces F-16 multirole fighters.
President Joe Biden has said the US would not be sending Kyiv the fighters, but rather than address the question he was asked, Mr Trump told Hewitt the US should “negotiate peace” between Ukraine and the country that launched an unprovoked invasion on it last February.
Andrew Feinberg reports:
‘I don’t think they should be sending very much, they should be negotiating peace’
An Italo-French SAMP/T air defence system will be up and running in Ukraine within the next two months, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday.
“I believe it will be operational within seven to eight weeks,” Antonio Tajani, who is also deputy prime minister, told a TV show in remarks confirmed by his spokesman.
The system can track dozens of targets and intercept 10 at once. It is the only European-made system that can intercept ballistic missiles.
Kyiv has asked its Western allies for more air defence systems and specifically requested the SAMP/T, known as Mamba, in November.
Rescue crews are continuing to search for survivors in the rubble of an apartment building hit late on Wednesday by a Russian missile that killed at least three people and wounded 21 others.
At least one more victim was thought to be under the debris, Ukraine‘s presidential office said.
“Kramatorsk again shattered by explosions – the Russians made two more rocket strikes,” regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote in a Telegram post.
President Vladimir Putin evoked the spirit of the Soviet army that defeated Nazi German forces at Stalingrad 80 years ago to declare that Russia would defeat a Ukraine in the grip of a new incarnation of Nazism.
In a fiery speech in Volgograd, known as Stalingrad until 1961, Putin lambasted Germany for helping to arm Ukraine and said, not for the first time, that he was ready to draw on Russia’s entire arsenal, which includes nuclear weapons.
“Unfortunately we see that the ideology of Nazism in its modern form and manifestation again directly threatens the security of our country,” Putin told an audience of army officers and members of local patriotic and youth groups.
“Again and again we have to repel the aggression of the collective West. It’s incredible but it’s a fact: we are again being threatened with German Leopard tanks with crosses on them.”
Reuters
Ben Wallace said there was “no magic wand in this horrendous conflict” when asked whether the UK could send fighter jets to Ukraine.
The defence secretary, taking questions at a press briefing in Portsmouth alongside Australian ministerial counterparts, said: “On the question of jets, one thing I’ve learned over the last year is don’t rule anything in, don’t rule anything out.
“That is the simple reality. We respond to the needs of the Ukrainians at the time, based on what the Ukrainians tell us, what we see in intelligence, in our knowledge of the Russians on the battlefield.
“Right now what the Ukrainians need is the ability to form military formations on the ground in order to use combined artillery to push back Russian forces.
“The issue here is it’s easy to get carried away. Last week we gave tanks, what next?”
Mr Wallace said training Ukrainian pilots to use UK fighter jets would “take months”, and suggested the priority should be helping train Kyiv’s forces to take back territory.
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Vladimir Putin delivers his speech in the southern Russian city of Volgograd
AP
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