Ukraine is working on its own air defense and anti-missile systems, the country’s army chief says. The state of fighting in key directions of the front line where Ukrainian troops are engaged in difficult battles. Trump tasks his aides with arranging a phone call with Putin, CNN says.
Ukraine is working on its own air defense, anti-missile systems, country’s army chief says
Ukraine is developing its own air defense system capable of intercepting Russian missiles, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrskyi said in an interview with war correspondent Andriy Tsaplienko for TSN news channel aired on national television on Sunday.
“Back in the Soviet times, [Ukraine] produced control systems for air defense systems. We have technical capacities and possibilities to create a domestic air defense system, and these works are underway,” Syrskyi said.
When asked whether Ukraine would be able to manufacture a homegrown equivalent to the U.S.-made Patriot system, Syrskyi smiled and said: “I hope it will be comparable in performance to the Patriot.”
Responding to a question on whether Ukraine has systems that can intercept Russia’s new Oreshnik missile, Syrskyi said: “Unfortunately, we don’t yet have one, but we need to do everything we can for them to appear.”
Syrskyi said that only a handful of air defense systems can intercept the Oreshnik, and that the missile represents a threat to the country.
“This encourages us to create our own air defense system, which would also operate as an anti-missile system,” he said.
When asked if Ukrainian air defense and anti-missile systems exist in theory or in practice, Syrskyi said: “Active work is underway toward this goal. I hope that we will have a desired result in the nearest time.”
He argued that in order to advance in a situation when Russia has superiority in manpower, Ukraine needs to “use what we have superiority in.”
“Being on the defensive eventually leads to retreat. We have to actually hold defensive positions along the entire front line,” he said. “We need to implement what we have superiority in. We were the first in the world to create the Unmanned Systems Forces. We are currently scaling up the unmanned systems component. We are actively developing unmanned ground platforms,” Syrskyi explained.
State of fighting in key directions of front line where Ukrainian troops are engaged in difficult battles
This month, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has reported an average daily tally of 150 combat engagements. The numbers vary across the front line, with the highest ones indicating the areas of the fiercest fighting, Ukrainska Pravda said in an article Monday. The piece gives an overview of what’s happening in key sections of the front line in Donetsk region.
The cities and towns of Pokrovsk, Toretsk, Chasiv Yar, Kupyansk (in Kharkiv region), and Velyka Novosilka are often in the news. They’re often labeled as having a difficult situation. Yet there are still civilians there.
In the Pokrovsk direction, the situation is critical. Ukrainian troops are losing ground there and cannot stabilize the front line after they retreated from Avdiyivka last year.
Instead of storming the city of Pokrovsk, Russian forces are trying to bypass it from the south and cut off supply routes to Ukraine’s troops. As of Sunday, they were three kilometers from Pokrovsk and five kilometers from the neighboring region of Dnipro.
Russian forces are cutting roads to Pokrovsk. They have recently cut the Mezhova-Pokrovsk highway and burnt a number of Ukrainian vehicles there. In the past several days, they have advanced to the north of the road, entering parts of Kotlyne and Udachne — the last villages before the administrative border with the region of Dnipro.
The situation in Velyka Novosilka, in the Novopavlivskyi direction, is close to critical. Russian forces began to storm the town on Saturday, using two convoys of vehicles and weapons. A few vehicles broke through into the town. The Russians began storming Velyka Novosilka in the foggy hours when drones had poor visibility.
A few days earlier they had captured the village of Vremivka that sits on a supply route to Velyka Novosilka from the west.
In the Toretsk direction, the situation is difficult. Ukrainian troops control around 30 per cent of the city of Toretsk. Intense urban fighting is raging. Ukrainian units aim to spot and target Russian infantry that try to advance further into the built-up area.
There is a risk of fully losing control of Toretsk. The city sits on a height that can be used to station artillery or conduct electronic reconnaissance from there.
There are four spoil heaps on the western outskirts of the city, each 200 meters high. Should Russian forces capture them, their artillery will come within range of the road Pokrovsk-Kostyantynivka and the city of Kostyantynivka. The spoil heaps are now controlled by Ukrainian troops.
In Chasiv Yar, in the Kramatorsk direction, the situation is difficult. Ukrainian troops control around 30 per cent of the city with 20 per cent more being in the grey zone. Ukrainian troops retreated from a refractory plant in Chasiv Yar earlier this month that served them as a large fortification. They will now fight from a built-up area damaged by artillery.
In the Lyman direction the situation is difficult. Russian forces advanced to the west bank of the Zherebets river near the village of Ivanivka.
The fiercest fighting in this section rages along the line Ivanivka — Terny — Yampolivka — Torsk. Russia is trying to expand the area it controls there.
Russian forces are probing Ukraine’s defenses in the Kolodyazi village that sits next to Ivanivka on the right bank of the Zherebets.
Trump tasks aides with arranging phone call with Putin, CNN says
President-elect Donald Trump has directed his aides to arrange a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the days after he’s sworn in, with one goal of the conversation to discuss an in-person meeting in the coming months to try to end the war in Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter cited by CNN on Sunday.
Officials on Trump’s national security team began working toward a call with Putin several weeks ago. It’s unclear whether a date for the conversation has been finalized.
Any talks between the two men will reflect a sharp break from President Joe Biden’s approach. He hasn’t spoken directly with Putin in almost three years.
Trump sees things differently. His view, described by a person familiar with his thinking, is that direct engagement with Putin is exactly what is needed to find a solution to end the war.
It’s largely unknown how much Trump plans to continue the Biden administration’s strategy of providing arms and intelligence to Kyiv.
