The US will provide a new arms aid package to Ukraine and its neighbors worth more than $3.75 billion (£3.1 billion), White House announce, including for the first time several dozen Bradley Fighting Vehicles. The package includes the withdrawal of $2.85 billion in Pentagon stocks that will be sent directly to Ukraine and $225 million in foreign military financing for long-term capacity building and support for the modernization of the Ukrainian military, said the White House.
The 36-hour unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin entered into force on Friday. The ceasefire on the “entire line of communication” will last until the end of Saturday, Russia’s first state TV channel mentioned. The order came from the Russian president after Patriarch Kirill, head of the Orthodox Church in Russia, came. He called for a cease-fire and the Christmas truce in Ukraine to enable the Orthodox to attend services.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected Russia’s ceasefire proposalwhich many observers have speculated was intended to allow Russian soldiers to rest. Ukrainian president claimed Its aim was to halt the advance of Ukrainian forces in Donetsk and the wider eastern Donbass region and to bring in more Moscow forces.
US President Joe Biden Putin said He was “trying to find some oxygen.” By floating the cease-fire, indicating that the Russian leader did not implement the break on December 25, which many Orthodox Ukrainians celebrate, or on the New Year. Putin’s announcement was most likely an informational operation intended to harm Ukraine’s reputation, According to the American think tank, Institute for the Study of War.
Artillery exchanges pounded war-torn cities in eastern Ukraine despite Putin’s declaration of a ceasefire. Agence France-Presse reported that the ongoing and incoming shelling of the city of Bakhmut on the front line was heard after the armistice was supposed to start unilaterally. The Ukrainian presidential administration said that Russian forces also bombed the city of Kramatorsk in the eastern Donetsk region, as well as the front-line town of Korakhov, where residential buildings and a medical facility were damaged.
Russian forces opened fire 14 times in the Luhansk region during the first three hours of the unilateral ceasefire in MoscowSaid the governor of the eastern region of Ukraine Serhiy Hayday.
Russia accused Ukrainian forces of bombing its military positions in the occupied Donetsk region Just as the cease-fire announced by Moscow entered into force. Russian officials in the alleged Donetsk People’s Republic posted on Telegram that “six 155mm rounds” were fired from “NATO 155mm artillery guns,” the Russian state-run news agency TASS reported. mentioned.
Ukraine’s military intelligence has claimed that Russia is about to order the mobilization of up to 500,000 conscripts in January. In addition to the 300,000 I contacted in October. Ukraine thinks so, said Vadym Skipetsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence The recruits will be part of a series of Russian attacks During spring and summer in the east and south of the country.
Ukraine will need at least $1.79bn (£1.48bn) to restore the telecoms sector to pre-war levels., according to the United Nations report. Russia has Networks “completely destroyed or taken over” The Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union said that the telecommunications infrastructure in more than 10 of the country’s 24 regions has been significantly damaged or destroyed.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report