Russia-Ukraine struggle – dwell: Huge explosions hit Kremlin army base after Moscow warns of Nato confrontation

Germany‘s defense minister on Thursday announced a plan to streamline and reorganize the country’s army command as a part of efforts to make the armed forces of NATO’s most populous European member “war-capable.”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz set in movement an enormous enhance in army spending shortly after Russia‘s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, which he described as a “turning point.” Defense Minister Boris Pistorius last year took on the job of overhauling the military, the Bundeswehr, after years of neglect and in November called for a review of its structure.

The smell in the car is sick and sweet, the overpowering scent of corpses that have lain too long in muck and ruin, the ones the dogs didn’t devour. Oleksii Yukov, a 38-year-old martial arts teacher who leads a group of volunteer physique collectors in Ukraine, doesn’t discover.

He is on the cellphone with one of many moms. She heard her son was injured in battle and left behind, however she’s undecided the place.

“He was left to die and now they are telling me that ‘he died as a hero!?’” she says, choking out phrases between sobs.

Resistance by Kharkiv’s vastly outnumbered defenders has infuriated Vladimir Putin, as Askold Krushelnycky discovers on the scene of a merciless attack on courageous Ukrainian rescue employees

Ukraine‘s air force shot down all 13 drones used in Russia’s in a single day attack on southern areas, the Ukrainian army stated on Friday.

Shahed drones had been destroyed over the Zaporizhzhia, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk areas. Russia additionally used two S-300/S-400 missiles and three Iskander-M ballistic missiles within the attack.

One of the assaults focused power infrastructure within the Odesa area however air defences repelled all 4 drones, Ukraine‘s southern group of forces said on the Telegram messaging app. The debris damaged several private residences and farm buildings in Zaporizhzhia, the statement said.

Local officials also reported explosions in an attack in the eastern city of Kharkiv, a regular target of Russian attacks, late on Thursday. The region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, stated the attack broken 4 automobiles and a five-storey building with no casualties reported as of Friday morning. Russia has stepped up assaults on Ukrainian grid infrastructure in recent weeks, aiming to disrupt the nation’s energy and power community.

Russia’s overseas ministry stated on Friday Sweden’s plans to arrange a NATO army base on the Gotland island within the Baltic Sea had been a provocation that might flip the ocean into an space of geopolitical confrontation, the RIA information company reported.

The ministry stated this may enhance dangers for delivery within the Baltic.

The governor of Russia’s Rostov-on-Don area stated early on Friday that air defence models had destroyed greater than 40 airborne targets, although an electrical energy substation was broken.

Vasily Golubev, writing on the Telegram messaging app, stated the drone assaults had centered on Morozovsk district, northeast of Rostov-on-Don, which lies on Ukraine‘s eastern border. Golubev said work was under way to restore power supplies in affected areas.

The attack may have been targeting a military airfield in Morozovsk, Rostov Oblast, where bombers Su-24, Su-24M, and Su-34 are based.

Ukraine has for months launched drone attacks on several Russian regions on its borders.

Russian air defences downed 53 Ukrainian drones overnight, most of them over the Rostov region, the RIA news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying on Friday.

One drone was downed in the Saratov region where an airbase for Russian strategic bombers is located. Drones were also downed over the Kursk, Belgorod and Krasnodar regions, the ministry said.

Nato alliance members agreed on Thursday to scour their arsenals for more air defence systems to protect Ukraine from Russian ballistic missile attacks, as the alliance marked a 75th anniversary overshadowed by the war on its borders.

“Allies understand the urgency,” Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said after Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba met counterparts and appealed for new additional air defence systems, especially US-made Patriot missiles.

“Allies will now go back and look into their inventories, look into if there are any ways they can provide more systems, in particular Patriots, but also of course ensure that the systems which are already there have the ammunition but also the spare parts (they need),” Mr Stoltenberg said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “I believe based on what I heard today that everyone, including the United States, is going to double back, and if necessary double down, on finding the resources that Ukraine continues to need.”

Neither official spelled out any specific pledge or aid target.

Earlier, as a ceremony with birthday cake and marching bands could not mask the sombre mood in Brussels, Mr Kuleba said: “I didn’t wish to spoil the party for Nato, however I felt compelled to ship a really sobering message on behalf of Ukrainians in regards to the state of Russian air assaults on my nation.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has referred to as Sweden’s plans to arrange a Nato army base on the Gotland island within the Baltic Sea a provocation that might flip the ocean into an space of geopolitical confrontation, the Russian state company RIA information reported.

The ministry stated the transfer would enhance dangers for delivery within the Baltic.