Russian President Putin wants to close the borders at the beginning of January and initiate a new mobilization. The Ukrainian Defense Minister warns of this. According to Ukrainian estimates, Russia needs five to ten years to rebuild its military. The night at a glance.
According to Ukrainian sources, Russia is preparing a new wave of mobilization. Russian President Putin is also planning to close the borders. That said the Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov in a video speech. “I know for sure that you have about a week left,” he said to the Russian people. “In early January, the Russian authorities will close the borders to people, declare martial law and launch another wave of mobilizations. The borders will also be closed in Belarus.” According to Reznikov, the new mobilization this time should also affect “the residents of large Russian cities”. Military experts have already suspected that Russia will soon launch a new wave of mobilization that is said to be better planned than the previous one.
The US analysts at the Institute for the Study of War write that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “further opened the floodgates to institutionalized corruption in Russia” by manipulating laws again Officials, including members of the military and law enforcement agencies, exempt from the obligation to publish income statements.
The decree also lifts the ban on military officials receiving “charitable” gifts related to the war in Ukraine. The independent Russian newspaper The Insider said the law could theoretically allow Russian military officials in Ukraine to confiscate the private property of Ukrainian residents in the occupied territories, as such property could legally be classified as “charitable gifts.”
Since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, the alarm sirens have sounded around 640 times in the capital Kyiv. Overall, since the end of February, the state of alarm has been in effect for almost 700 hours, said Kiev’s military administration chief Serhiy Popko on Friday. “That’s practically 29 days, almost a whole calendar month, that the city’s citizens spent in shelters and bunkers.” In total, the capital experienced 52 air raids in which 120 people died, including five children. 495 people were injured in the rocket and cruise missile attacks.
More than 600 buildings were damaged by the attacks, Popko said. The critical infrastructure of the capital had been significantly damaged. The number of casualties and damaged buildings could not be independently verified.
According to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov, the Russian army has lost a lot of its effectiveness over the years due to its losses in Ukraine. The Russian armed forces would need at least five years to rebuild. “According to the findings of NATO reconnaissance, the Russians have suffered huge losses in tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers and soldiers,” Resnikov was quoted as saying by the newspaper Ukrajinska Pravda.
“The regular armed forces of the Russian Federation could be restored in five years at the earliest, maybe in ten years,” the minister said. That also applies to Russia’s missile potential. After all, this is a war of resources. “And they (NATO) can calculate these resources.”
According to the military, since the beginning of the Russian invasion and the declaration of a state of war in Ukraine, several thousand young Ukrainians have tried to evade military service. As the Ukrainian border troops announced on Friday, almost 12,000 men were caught trying to illegally cross the country’s border to the west. 15 men died while crossing the border.
In Russia, too, thousands of young men tried to evade military service. Immediately after the partial mobilization in September, thousands fled abroad, and veritable small Russian colonies were established in some former Soviet republics.
That will be important on Saturday
At the end of a year that was strongly marked by the war, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) calls on the people of Germany to show confidence and unite. In his speech, which will be broadcast on television on Saturday evening, he said, among other things: “We sympathize with the Ukrainians, who, even on days like today, cannot rest from the Russian bombs and rockets.”
