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US closes Kyiv embassy amid warning of significant airstrike
Credit: themoscowtimes.com

Following a strike by Ukrainian forces using U.S.-supplied weapons systems on an armaments store inside Russia, U.S. authorities warned Wednesday of a “potential significant air attack” on Kyiv and announced that the U.S. Embassy in the city would be closed “out of an abundance of caution.” According to a statement posted on the embassy’s website, “Embassy employees are being instructed to shelter in place.” “If an air alert is issued, U.S. citizens should be ready to seek shelter right away,” the U.S. Embassy advises. According to media reports and declarations on their websites, the embassies of Italy, Greece, and Spain in Kyiv will also temporarily close. Citing a notification from the U.S. Embassy, the Italian Embassy issued a warning about a “possible high-intensity airstrike.” However, the fear of airstrikes “has, unfortunately, been a daily reality” over the 1,000 days of war, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.

Heightened tensions in the Ukraine conflict

Speaking without needless informational escalation, spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi stated,

“We think it would be appropriate for our partners to respond on the 1,001st day in the same way they did on the preceding days.”

Meanwhile, Russia was disseminating a bogus communication purportedly from Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, GUR, regarding a large missile attack on Ukrainian cities. GUR posted on Telegram,

“This message is fake; it contains grammatical errors typical for Russian information and psychological operations.”

“The enemy uses psychological pressure and intimidation tactics on society because they are unable to use force to subjugate Ukrainians.”

As has been the case since September, Russian soldiers did bombard Ukraine overnight Wednesday with waves of missiles and drones that could destroy themselves. According to Ukraine’s air force, 56 of the 122 drones that were fired at targets throughout the nation were shot down, while 64 of them missed their targets.

Evacuation of diplomatic personnel

According to a Telegram post by Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, debris from drones that were captured fell in three areas of the city, although there were no reports of damage or injuries. The attacks, along with the possibility of a bigger one on Wednesday, occur one day after Ukraine fired the first American-made ATACMS missiles inside Russia. The strike on an armory store in the western Bryansk area of Russia was deemed entirely ineffectual by the country’s defense ministry. However, according to Ukrainian officials, the strike set fire to the depot in Karachev, which is located roughly 210 miles southwest of Moscow and just over 70 miles from the Russia-Ukraine border. The strike follows a shift of the Biden administration’s stance, which had previously barred Kyiv from utilizing U.S.-made weaponry within Russia. Although Moscow has issued similar threats during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is now over three years old, Russian authorities have stated that permitting strikes within their nation would be a “red line.”

Implications for US-Ukraine relations

Russia’s National Defense magazine, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, issued a warning that “attempts by certain NATO allies” to assist Ukraine with long-range strikes on Russian territory “will not go unpunished.” In another change of long-standing U.S. policy, the Biden administration also approved the deployment of antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine to halt Russia’s inexorable march in the eastern territory. Before being granted authorization to employ the American-provided missiles, Ukrainian forces frequently used their long-range drones to target targets inside Russia. Over 400 miles from the Ukrainian border, in Russia’s Novgorod area, Ukrainian drones struck an arms stockpile close to the town of Kotovo overnight, according to Andriy Kovalenko, a member of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.

Regional security concerns intensify

In a post on Telegram, Kovalenko stated that the storage had a variety of missiles, including those supplied by North Korea, as well as artillery and mortar munitions. According to a social media statement by Russia’s Defense Ministry, Russian forces “destroyed and intercepted” 44 

Ukrainian drones overnight Wednesday, including 20 “over the Novgorod region.” However, the arms depot was not mentioned in the statement. Ukraine’s electrical grid suffered significant damage on Sunday as a result of one of the biggest strikes in months, which involved 90 drones and 120 cruise, ballistic, and aeroballistic missiles, according to officials. As temperatures fell to around freezing this week, Ukraine’s power companies were compelled to resume rationing power nationwide in order to conserve energy. According to officials, Ukrainians may only have a few hours of electricity each day over the winter if Russia’s strikes continue.

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