Russian Lawyer Who Defended Opposition Activists Flees Russia

There are indications that Russia is preparing an escalation of the war in Ukraine in February, the secretary of Ukraine’s Stability Council, Oleksiy Danilov, explained on January 4, a day following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russia was organizing to contact up more troops for a important new offensive.

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“There are several indications that give us purpose to say that they might have an additional try in February,” Danilov mentioned on Ukrainian nationwide tv.

Danilov mentioned a person of the indications is the improved action of Dmitry Kozak, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of team, who has been holding conferences in Europe in order to pressure Ukraine to indicator peace agreements.

Danilov explained Ukraine “will not go for it.”

Kyiv has been declaring for weeks that Putin programs to order a further mass mobilization and shut his borders to reduce males from escaping the draft.

“We have no question that the recent masters of Russia will toss almost everything they have left and everybody they can spherical up to attempt to switch the tide of the war and at the very least hold off their defeat,” Zelenskiy stated in his nightly video clip deal with on January 3.

“We have to disrupt this Russian circumstance…. Any endeavor at their new offensive should fail,” he explained.

The opinions came even as Moscow faced severe interior criticism around a strike that killed scores of new conscripts.

Moscow has acknowledged that 89 troopers ended up killed in the strike in the Donetsk region on December 31. Ukraine’s navy and pro-Kremlin military services bloggers have stated that all over 400 soldiers died or ended up wounded in the artillery attack in the town of Makiyivka.

Hanna Malyar, deputy minister of protection of Ukraine, reported sizeable Russian losses intended Moscow would probably have to announce a next partial mobilization in the first quarter of the calendar year.

Russia’s existing initiatives are centered on capturing Lyman, Soledar, Bakhmut, Avdiyivka, and Maryinka, Malyar claimed.

To maximize the usefulness of the use of troops, Russia “will continue on to kind extra assault units in the near long run” and concentrate the major efforts on the capture of the communities, she wrote on Telegram.

In accordance to the Protection Ministry’s Key Directorate of Intelligence, the Kremlin’s options “stay unchanged — forcing the management of our region to negotiate by drive,” Malyar said.

Ukraine obtained a pledge for army tools on January 4 from French President Emmanuel Macron, who mentioned France would send out light-weight AMX-10 RC armored combat vehicles to support Kyiv in its war towards Russia.

Describing the automobiles as “light tanks,” an aide to Macron claimed the French president, who spoke by phone with Zelenskiy, would like to enhance aid to Ukraine, but it was not quickly clear how several of the cars would be dispatched or when they would be shipped.

Previously on January 4, explosions had been documented in the vicinity of Russia’s Belbek armed forces airfield on Ukraine’s occupied Crimean Peninsula, while Moscow renewed its air assaults on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure in spite of Kyiv’s successes downing Russian drones.

The Russia-mounted head of the port metropolis of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, claimed on Telegram that two drones had been shot down by Russian forces. RFE/RL can not validate that report.

Belbek is property to the 38th fighter regiment of the Russian Air Drive. It was qualified by a drone assault in August 2022. Given that then, air defenses in Crimea have been activated consistently. The occupation head of the peninsula, Sergei Aksyonov, has reported drone assaults are the “main threat” in the region.

The Ukrainian Typical Workers noted on January 4 that Russia has released dozens of air and missile strikes, lots of of which specific civilian infrastructure in Kramatorsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson.

The Ukrainian army claimed on January 3 that it had shot down 84 Russian drones on December 31-January 1.

“We have in no way achieved this kind of outcomes,” Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat claimed for the duration of a telephone briefing. “We have shot down nearly 500 drones considering that September.”

Russia has carried out rigorous air strikes towards Ukraine’s electrical power procedure considering the fact that Oct, producing widespread blackouts and shortages of heating and drinking water.

With reporting by Reuters