According to today’s report of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the nuclear forces of the Russian army are conducting exercises in Ivanovo, northeast of Moscow.
About 1,000 military personnel conduct “intense maneuvering operations on combat patrol routes as part of exercises.” More than 100 vehicles are in use, including Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, according to the ministry. Yars missiles are a nuclear weapon. So far, no footage from the exercise has been released.
The exercises take place during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has reached its 98th day today.
“One of the exercise’s highest priority tasks was to address a wide range of issues associated with search and destruction conditional sabotage and reconnaissance formations day and night,” the report said. The exercise makes it possible to improve the level of training of personnel, the coherence of formations and military units of the Strategic Missile Forces.”
Ukrainian losses
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the country lost 100 soldiers a day to defend the region during the Russian occupation. “The situation is very difficult. We are losing 60 to 100 soldiers a day killed in action,” he said in an interview broadcast late last night by the US Newsmax channel. Zelensky also said that Ukrainian forces have about 500 casualties a day.
The casualty figures reported by Zelensky are lower than those reported by the Russian Ministry of Defense. Yesterday, the Russians said they had killed more than 290 Ukrainian fighters. Today, between air and artillery strikes, Russia reported around 340 dead. Neither Russian nor Ukrainian figures could be verified by independent sources.
In the interview, Zelensky reiterated that Ukraine will not give up land. “This is our sovereignty,” he said. The president also reinforced the call for longer-range weapons, stating that they would be for defending Ukrainian territory, not attacking Russian territory. “What’s going on in Russia is not our concern,” he said. “We are only interested in our own region in Ukraine.”
In his nightly video statement, the president of Ukraine said yesterday that everyone should lobby Ukraine “for the supply of modern heavy weapons” and that they can “really hasten victory”.
Image: May 31, 2022 – Presidency of Reproduction/Ukraine
According to Zelensky, the most difficult situation in the conflict is in the Donbass, a region in the east with pro-Russian separatists. Expanding control over the city of Sievierodonetsk in the Luhansk region, local governor Sergey Gaidai stated that they launched attacks on the city, but Ukrainian troops continued to fight over the region.
Ukrainian authorities also reported attacks on points in the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions. For Zelensky, Sivierodonetsk one of the epicenters of the conflict at the moment along with the neighbor The city of Lysychansk and Kurakhove, Donetsk region.
US weapons
Moscow officials said the US’ new weapons shipments to Ukraine, including the multi-barrel rocket system, raise the risk of a military confrontation between Russia and the US.
“Any ongoing or increased delivery of weapons increases the risk of such an event,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the RIA Novosti news agency, when asked about a possible armed conflict between Washington and Moscow.
The US government announced on Tuesday that Himars (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) systems, which allow multiple rocket launches and have a range of 80 kilometers, have been shipped to Ukraine. While they are not long-range systems, they represent a significant strengthening of Ukraine’s capabilities.
(with Reuters and AFP)
source: Noticias
