Ukraine increases pressure on Russia with attacks in the rear, which responds with blows against the Ukrainian war industry and military targets, amid complaints about the possible use of North Korean missiles by the Russian Army.
As reported this Friday by the Russian Ministry of Defense, in the early hours of the morning "an attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack with fixed-wing drones against targets in Russian territory was aborted."
"Anti-aircraft means intercepted and shot down 36 Ukrainian drones over the territory of the Republic of Crimea and one over the Krasnodar region," bordering the Black and Azov seas, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
This massive attack followed that of the day before, when the Russian anti-aircraft defense shot down 10 Ukrainian missiles that did not cause major damage according to Russian authorities, but which destroyed a Russian command post according to kyiv.
"Not only was a command post destroyed, but the major attack on the last day caused serious damage to the defense system of the Crimean peninsula," Ukrainian Southern Command spokesperson Natalia told Ukrainian public television today. Gumeniuk.
He added that this attack, which is not the first of its kind, causes Russian forces "a hysteria of changing positions, as they try to maneuver and locate both the defense systems and the objectives they protect in other places."
Although Russia did not recognize the destruction of its command post, media such as Visegrád24 asserted that the chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, had died as a result of this attack, information that the Ukrainians themselves accepted with skepticism.
"There are many versions of who could have died there, I even heard Gerasimov's last name. It would be good news, but I think this does not correspond to reality," spokesman for the Ukrainian volunteer corps Yug () told the Espreso television channel. South), Serhi Bratchuk.
In turn, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported this Friday in its weekly report that in the last seven days it launched 41 combined attacks with high-precision weapons and a massive attack against "targets of the Ukrainian military industry, military airfields, arsenals and fuel stores".
In addition, the ministry noted that the attacks also hit "areas where units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, nationalist units and foreign mercenaries are located." "All designated objectives were achieved," the ministry said.
Meanwhile, within the framework of the current duel of attacks against the rear, United States intelligence accused Russia of having used North Korean ballistic missiles, information that was expanded by John Kirby, one of the White House spokespersons, who even set a date to their alleged launches.
Washington has for months condemned North Korea's intention to supply weapons to Russia and has harshly criticized the meeting that took place in September 2023 between the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, of the which no agreement was made public.
The American Institute for War Studies (ISW) recognized "the relative success" of the combined use of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles by Russian forces, suggesting the possibility that given the lack of capabilities to produce enough rockets, Russia "will have to obtain ballistic missiles from abroad" to secure these achievements.
While Moscow remains silent on the matter, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, Yuri Ignat, preferred not to confirm the use of these missiles in his country.
"At the moment we have no data that these missiles have been used" by North Korea, he said during a presentation on Ukrainian television.
However, the advisor to the Ukrainian presidential office, Mijailo Podoliak, considered Washington's arguments sufficient and denounced that never in history had "the axis of evil" been so evident.
"They are no longer hiding. Russia, within the framework of its genocidal war, attacked Ukraine for the first time with missiles received from North Korea. They finally took off their masks," he said on Telegram.
