Ukraine is bracing for further stepped-up Russian airstrikes targeting its energy infrastructure, with President Vladimir Putin on Friday confirming the next wave is imminent, telling his German counterpart Olaf Scholz that new attacks are "inevitable" due to the West's "destructive" policies.
"It was noted that the Russian Armed Forces had long refrained from precision missile strikes against certain targets on the territory of Ukraine," a Kremlin readout of the telephone call begins. "But now such measures have become a forced and inevitable response to Kyiv's provocative attacks on Russia's civilian infrastructure."
The statement emphasizes NATO's weapons pipeline into Kiev: "Attention was drawn to the destructive line of Western states, including Germany, that are pumping the Kyiv regime with weapons, and are training the Ukrainian military."
Putin reminded Scholz of the West's deep "political and financial support" which has made the potential for any meaningful ceasefire negotiations impossible, from Moscow's perspective. He said constant and largescale military support from allies "leads to the fact that Kyiv completely rejects the idea of any negotiations."
Meanwhile, there appears to be external verification that the next significant aerial attack on Ukraine is coming soon, with Sky News Australia citing military analysts who say new satellite images show Russia is planning an 'imminent' large scale missile strike on Ukraine.
According to details in the report:
Satellite images released by US-based Maxar Technologies show a build-up of two dozen Tu-95 and Tu-160 long-range bombers at Engels-2 air base in Saratov Oblast, 700km from the Russia-Ukrainian border.
Pictured beside the aircraft are ammunition boxes, which experts say are likely to contain Kh-55 and Kh-101 cruise missiles, with the significant increase in activity suggesting a looming attack.
Additionally, Der Spiegel quotes military analyst Arda Mevluto?lu as follows: "The unusually high number of bombers on the tarmac is an indication of an increase in operations, if not an imminent large-scale attack."
Despite Ukrainian utility and emergency crews continuing to scramble, it remains that an estimated 40% of the entire national energy infrastructure remains degraded or destroyed. The New York Times reported this week, "Ukrainian officials said that Russian attacks had disabled the power grid in the southern city of Kherson and six million people across the country were still without power after previous assaults."
Temperatures have also remained below freezing, and are expected to dip further into the frigid winter months. Russia has defended its attacks on the energy grid as "legitimate", while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a meeting of NATO ministers in Bucharest, Romania condemned the "barbaric" Russian actions.
By Zerohedge.com
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Comments
The US has sparked a war against Russia using Ukraine as a pawn and dragging the EU who has no vital strategic interests in Ukraine into it. Unfortunately the EU lacks leaders able to stand up to the US like former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. That is why the EU is now paying a horrendous price in terms of huge energy costs and disastrous impact on its economy and the living standards of its people.
The US has had dual purposes for sparking the conflict: weaken Russia and its strategic alliance with China and slow down the transition of the World Order from a unipolar system led by the United States since the collapse of the former Soviet Union into a multipolar one being ushered in by China and Russia. The US aim vis-à-vis the EU is to destroy it as an alliance and make its individual members vassal states and puppets such as Poland. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and also erase the euro from the face of the earth.
The EU is an economic giant accounting for 17% of the global economy but a geopolitical dwarf unable to stand up to pressure and manipulations by the United States.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Global Energy Expert