(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Russia opened up on civilian targets in Kharkiv again:
So far 9 civilians are injured, 2 in critical condition. The compound was hit by two 🇷🇺s300 rockets. All of the cars at the parking lot were destroyed. pic.twitter.com/1eOZ7xG5ld
— Volodymyr (@vicechat) January 10, 2024
Sickening. Another missile attack on hotel in Kharkiv. 10 injured, including Turkish journalist. Russian terror continues. Every night, around 11 pm, Kharkiv shudders in waves of explosions pic.twitter.com/Oak5EvwCzY
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) January 10, 2024
That's a children's health center in Kharkiv after the russian missile strike. russians act like terrorists, destroying civilian objects with the use of ballistic missiles.
Fortunately, there were no casualties.
📸: Kharkiv Military Administration pic.twitter.com/7vXtNahfq8
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) January 10, 2024
More on this after the jump.
President Zelenskyy addressed the both the Ukrainian and Lithuanian people today during his visit to Vilnius. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
Together we are changing history for the better – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to the public of Lithuania and Ukraine
10 January 2024 – 17:03
Sveikinu tave, Vilniau, sveikinu tave, Lietuvos tauta!
Days before, Vilnius experienced an especially cold spell. The next few days may also be very cold. But today, it’s significantly warmer, – a symbolic change indeed. When we stand together, even the cold retreats.
And I am confident, so will Russia.
We cannot mark a specific day when this will happen, nor can we detail every aspect of how it will unfold. But we know it will happen.
Our freedom will prevail – and there will be that day, the first day after this war. Our day.
When in ’89, ’90, ’91, the Baltic peoples first among nations, enslaved by Moscow, openly embarked on the path to restoring real state independence, Ukrainians were inspired by your courage and your anticipation – anticipation of the future.
You desired freedom above all else. And you knew, once your freedom was safeguarded, it would define a prosperous fate for you.
And so it did.
We are all grateful for that courage of yours, which helped change history for the better.
Now, we find ourselves at an even more pivotal historic moment. Now, risks are even higher.
Now, all of us are facing a much more malicious Russia.
As Moscow tries to resurrect its old empire with the whole range of modern weapons, our Ukrainian courage also helps you. Our common unity is also a security guarantee for you. The resilience of our warriors is also your resilience. And our Ukrainian sense that Russia will not withstand if we keep striking, also confirms our common rightness. The rightness of our shared historical choice – to be independent. To be in Europe. To be among equals and therefore, peaceful.
This will happen. And to this end, we must do everything possible in maximum unity for as long as it takes to achieve our goal. There will be no more empire.
Those who instigated this aggression against Ukraine clearly envisioned how they wanted the first day after Ukraine to look.
They dream of humiliating our nation. They kill without hesitation. They deported hundreds of thousands of our people, adults and children. They wanted to erase everything our culture stands on.
They brutally torture our people – thousands held captive – simply to avenge Ukraine’s existence. Such is the level of Russian evil.
And if a catastrophic day – the day after Ukraine – ever came to pass, Russia would ensure it continued. There would be a day after Moldova. Then, a day after the Baltics. A day after Poland… A day after many others.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan already hear Russia disparaging their independence. Moscow has no respect for the nations of the Caucasus and there is a clear Russian desire to manipulate all.
And it is dangerous for everyone to stay silent, to stay aside or alone.
When everyone helps one, the freedom of each wins. This rule has worked repeatedly throughout history. It will work now too – for all of us.
Any empire is built on the cornerstone of freedom’s definitive defeat, and Moscow needs to subjugate our state for this very reason.
But together, we are changing history for the better.
There won’t be a day after Ukraine. There will be a day after the war. After Putin.
It will be a day of our guaranteed security. And your inviolable freedom. And peaceful life for Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Sweden. For all states whose fate Russia now tries to drown in doubt.
It will be a new day of opportunity for Belarus – an opportunity Belarus deserves.
A day of newfound strength for our entire Europe, which defending against Russian hybrid attacks is learning true unity… A unity that makes our continent a global defender of freedom. A unity, complete with Ukraine. With Ukraine in the European Union, with Ukraine in NATO, with Ukraine in peace.
Dear friends!
We all know the steps needed. We all know what we can lose and what we can gain. We all know the day we desire. And we must get our job done. We must do everything for the victory.
I thank you, the people of Lithuania, for everything, for supporting Ukraine. Thanks a lot and big applause to you! Thank you, Gitanas, my friend! I am thankful to your family, your loved ones, all people who have been standing with Ukraine for all these days and months of our war for freedom, our fight for independence! I thank you all for being here, for having Ukraine in your heart all these months and years of war. Thank you for standing with Ukraine!
Glory to you!
Glory to Ukraine!
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are our reliable friends and principled partners.
Today, I arrived in Vilnius before going to Tallinn and Riga.
I will hold talks with the President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the Seimas, as well as meet with politicians, the media, and the…— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 10, 2024
Lithuania is Ukraine's true friend!
Thank you for your unwavering support.
🇺🇦🤝🇱🇹 https://t.co/DXz4gm5XWA— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) January 10, 2024
The cost:
The 3 guys on the right of this picture didn't make it. They died heroes✌️🇺🇦
I hope one day there will be a monument to all the Internationals that paid the ultimate price. Perhaps a garden of remembrance. A place to sit, think, laugh and love 💙 pic.twitter.com/J4uF6WFKEr— Macer Gifford (@macergifford) January 10, 2024
Every day, new petitions appear on @ZelenskyyUa's site asking him honor a fallen soldier as a Hero of Ukraine.
The sheer number of appeals (> 2,000 since Feb. 2022 invasion) offers a window into the scale of trauma 🇺🇦 is living through.
My story:https://t.co/dZ83alzOyR
— Dan Peleschuk (@dpeleschuk) January 10, 2024
From Reuters: (emphasis mine)
KYIV, Jan 10 (Reuters) – After her younger brother was killed in November fighting Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, Anna Birzul spent two days stricken with grief.
Then she sprang into action, penning a petition asking President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to award 29-year-old Bohdan Krotov the highest military honour, Hero of Ukraine.
“We buried him on the 26th, and already on the 27th I had written it,” said a tearful Birzul, 35, standing at Krotov’s grave in a Kyiv cemetery.
A portrait of the combat medic, smiling, hung beneath a fluttering Ukrainian flag that featured his Interior Ministry unit’s insignia.
Birzul’s petition is one of at least 2,000 submitted, usually by a relative or a friend, since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion calling on Zelenskiy to honour a fallen soldier with the award.
Fewer than 400 service members have been named Hero of Ukraine since the war began, many of them posthumously, for valorous acts such as helping thwart enemy advances.
The petitions, introduced in 2015 as a platform for popular appeals to the president, are not a formal part of the nomination process for the award, which was established in 1998.
When Ukrainian troops were fighting a lower-intensity insurgency by Moscow-backed separatists, appeals were registered sparingly.
Now, new petitions appear almost daily from grieving widows, mothers and children – first on the president’s website, then splashed across social media – and have become a common ritual in a war that has rallied the nation but shows no signs of abating.
They offer a window into the collective trauma Ukrainians are living through, and underline how virtually every soldier who is killed in battle is seen as a “hero” for helping to defend the country from invading forces.
The government does not disclose its losses, but Western intelligence services have estimated that tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed.
Birzul described her brother, who joined an assault brigade before Ukraine began a counteroffensive last June, as cheerful and selfless. He had been sensitive and supportive when they were young and lacked a strong father figure.
Krotov, who commonly went by the name Hlib, dreamed of starting a family of his own, she said, but while at war he felt a sense of purpose.
He had hauled wounded men off the battlefield and rescued them under heavy fire, Birzul wrote in her petition. His comrades-in-arms recalled him fondly, “with tears in their eyes”.
He saved four people the day he was killed, Birzul told Reuters, citing Krotov’s fellow soldiers.
Like some others, Birzul has promoted her appeal widely on social media, urging friends and followers – among them public figures – to share it on their own accounts.
It is a race against time, she said, to collect within 90 days of publication the 25,000 signatures needed for consideration.
More at the link!
Ukraine will need about $4.1 bln in humanitarian aid to support more than 15 mln people, roughly 40% of the country’s population, according to @UNOCHA. Also, about 6.3 mln 🇺🇦 have been forced to seek refuge abroad because of the war in Ukraine. It is about the scale of the… pic.twitter.com/0J22SmqAXu
— Гюндуз Мамедов/Gyunduz Mamedov (@MamedovGyunduz) January 10, 2024
The stakes:
Historians of the future will spend centuries arguing how it was even possible that the pre-war world got so unbelievably dumb. pic.twitter.com/2dDwai46Ld
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) January 10, 2024
From Politico EU:
BRUSSELS — One of Europe’s most senior politicians recounted how former U.S. President Donald Trump privately warned that America would not come to the EU’s aid if it was attacked militarily.
“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you,” Trump told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2020, according to French European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who was also present at a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO,” Trump also said, according to Breton. “And he added, ‘and by the way, you owe me $400 billion, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defense,'” Breton said about the tense meeting, where the EU’s then-trade chief Phil Hogan was also present.
Breton told the anecdote at an event in the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday, just days before the Republican Party holds its January 15 caucus in Iowa, the opening contest in Trump’s bid to win the Republican nomination for a run at returning to the White House. Party members will cast their votes for candidates including Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who both trail way behind the ex-president in opinion polls.
Brussels is rife with fear about the possibility Trump will return to the U.S. presidency.
As the commissioner in charge of the EU’s industrial policy and defense agenda, Breton has pushed for the EU to boost its own self-defense capabilities amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, and on Tuesday floated a €100 billion fund to ramp up arms production in the bloc.
“That was a big wake-up call and he may come back,” Breton said about Trump. “So now more than ever, we know that we are on our own, of course. We are a member of NATO, almost all of us, of course we have allies, but we have no other options but to increase drastically this pillar in order to be ready [for] whatever happens.”
I want to be very clear here: I have significant issues with Biden’s senior natsec team, as well as the strategies they’ve undertaken in regard to supporting Ukraine, but in regard to natsec policy and strategy I am very glad he is president right now and not Trump for the reasons outlined in the Politico EU article.
Kharkiv:
One of the best children's summer camps in Kharkiv. Today, Russia can be proud of itself: a worthy target for a missile strike pic.twitter.com/A7EACMBzvU
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) January 10, 2024
— Volodymyr (@vicechat) January 10, 2024
Suspilne* — correcting the weird autocorrect typo above
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) January 10, 2024
Went to Kharkiv metro today and stumbled upon a folk ensemble keeping Ukrainian traditions alive. Beautiful, yet painful that all public activities are still possible only underground in Kharkiv pic.twitter.com/pk80cQYrlX
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) January 10, 2024
Serebryansky Forest, Luhansk Oblast:
Serebryansky forest, Luhansk region
— Мисливець за зорями (@small10space) January 10, 2024
Kyiv:
This is after Volodymyr “Rydiy” Starykov, a warfighter with the Azov special operations detachment killed during the Battle of Kyiv at Moschun on March 15, 2022.
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) January 10, 2024
Krynky, left bank of the Dnipro, Russian occupied Kherson Oblast:
Video by the Birds of Magyar unit. Destroying Russian AFVs which were abandoned during resent Russian attack on Krynky. BTR, BMP, T-62 and Bukhanka with BIG cage.https://t.co/zMeMjBwWYP https://t.co/EzHcpB7Kfd pic.twitter.com/RaEx9rLJmL
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) January 10, 2024
Magyar’s Birds continue their hunt!
Vuhledar front:
Destruction of the Russian 2S19 Msta-S 152.4 mm self-propelled howitzer on Vuhledar front. ~11km from the frontline
47.644301, 37.091726 https://t.co/ecdfYJApFo pic.twitter.com/akziGoHlfo— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) January 10, 2024
Here’s the machine translation of Stenenko’s tweet:
Destroyed Russian artillery does not happen a lot 💥
Another Russian Msta-S self-propelled gun was burned by Shadow soldiers!
The installation in the firing position burned out after a few hits and will never harm anyone again.It took 4 of your FPVs to destroy the self-propelled guns. One is not always enough. That is why the army needs more drones!
Russian occupied Crimea:
/2. The death of the commander of the 3rd Radio-Technical Regiment was mentioned three days ago by this source: https://t.co/Nixo9alz32
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) January 10, 2024
Obukhovo, Moscow Oblast:
A polymer plant in Obukhovo in the Moscow region experienced spontaneous combustion. Are of fire over 8,000 km2. Hundreds of emergency workers deployed. pic.twitter.com/33PasTua2O
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) January 10, 2024
Nizhny Tagil, Russia:
A couple of days ago, Russian media reported that an explosive device was detonated on the railway in Nizhny Tagil. Now a video from locals has appeared online showing the damage caused. ~1650km from the front line. https://t.co/pxiqB9cpkK
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) January 10, 2024
For you logistics enthusiasts, Military Ukraine has some interesting details by Andriy Haruk on Russian armor. (machine translation)
How many tanks are left in Russia? A question that often arises in discussions, and to which it is simply impossible to find an exact answer – she probably does not even know the shogu with the gerasimov. However, attempts to count tanks do not stop. Today we will analyze one of them – report of the French OSINT cell ARI, published on August 31, 2023.
The French tried to figure out how many tanks the Russians have at storage bases. I must say that the numbers here are very « jump» – for example, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated this number in 2022 at as many as 17.5 thousand tanks, including 200 T-90, 3 thousand T-80, 7 thousand T-72, 2 thousand T-64, 2.5 thousand T-62 and 2.8 thousand T-55. However, these calculations are very inaccurate, as they start from estimating the number of tanks released during the USSR.
Estimates of last year’s Military Balance anniversary are much more modest: about 2,000 tanks in the storm and up to 5,000 in storage. However, its authors take into account models from T-62 and above – but in reality the Laptenogi not only have hundreds of T-54/55 in warehouses, but also already use them at the front! Interestingly, in 2022. Military Balance wrote about 13.7 thousand Russian tanks, but in this case did not count T-54/55.
ARI experts in their calculations used satellite images taken between April and September 2021. Complemented their information from social networks. Calculations were made at ten central storage bases out of 22 available in the Russian Federation – on them, an estimated 95% of tanks.
So what could be counted? 5538 tanks, of which 4347 – identified by type. It is clear that these are tanks that are stored in the open air. At the studied bases there are also canopies and boxes, the capacity of which is estimated in 1950 cars. However, some of these premises should be allocated for repairs, and some are probably not occupied by tanks, but by other machines. Taking into account the above, the number of tanks in storage can be estimated at a maximum of 7 thousand, but probably – about 6 thousand.
More at the link!
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
There are no new Patron tweets or videos today, so here’s some adjacent material from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
Our mission is to defend those we love.
📸: Oleksandr Kozlovskyi / 121st @TDF_UA Brigade pic.twitter.com/IK5L2cHfcA
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) January 10, 2024
Open thread!
War for Ukraine Day 686: Kharkiv Comes Under Fire, Again!Post + Comments (22)