Two men opened fire on Russian infantrymen at an educational camp in the Belgorod region on Saturday, killing 11 others and wounding 15, before killing themselves, according to Russian media.
The Russian Defense Ministry the episode of a terrorist attack, according to RIA Novosti and TASS, which cited a statement from the ministry.
The account of the shooting can only be independently verified.
The ministry said the two men were from an unidentified ex-Soviet country and shot other infantrymen during shooting education at a shooting range, RIA Novosti reported.
It was soon clarified whether the attackers were volunteer infantrymen involved in the training. Previous reports indicated that they were volunteers.
Police were running at the scene, according to the statement.
The firing comes after President Vladimir Putin announced a primary mobilization for his failed war effort in Ukraine, where the Ukrainian military has regained territory in the occupied east and south through Russia.
Putin said Friday that more than 220,000 reservists have already been called up as part of an effort to recruit 300,000.
At least 16,000 of them have been deployed “in sets concerned with carrying out combat tasks,” Putin told a news conference Friday in Astana, Kazakhstan, adding that he expects the mobilization to end within two weeks.
Russian media reported at least seven deaths among those recently recruited. Asked Friday why some infantrymen died so soon after the mobilization began, Putin said that in some cases education can take as little as 10 days.
In late September, Putin said there were “mistakes” in the way the Russian government executed its project. He described cases of others entitled to incorrectly written deferments, such as fathers of many children, men with chronic illnesses or the elderly.
MISSILE CAPTURES
In a continuation of the Russian attacks, a missile strike on Saturday severely destroyed a key electrical facility in Ukraine’s capital region, the country’s grid operator said. After racking up setbacks, the Russian military has been racing to cut off power and water in remote populated spaces. while repelling Ukrainian counterattacks in occupied spaces.
In the Zaporizhzhia region, Governor Oleksandr Starukh said the Russian military had carried out movements with Iranian suicide drones and long-range S-300 missiles. Some experts said the Russian military’s use of surface-to-air missiles may reflect a dearth of accuracy. weapons committed to achieving floor targets.
The governor of the Kyiv region, Oleksiy Kuleba, said the missile that hit a power plant on Saturday morning killed or wounded someone. Citing security, Ukrainian officials identified the site, one of many infrastructure targets the Russian military tried to destroy after a truck bomb exploded on Oct. 8 that breached the bridge connecting Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula.
Ukrainian power transmission company Ukrenergo said repair crews were working to repair power service, but warned citizens of new outages imaginable. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, suggested to the citizens of the capital and 3 neighboring regions to save energy.
In the southern Kherson region, one of the first regions of Ukraine to fall to Russia after the invasion and which Putin illegally designated as Russian territory last month, Ukrainian forces continued their counteroffensive on Saturday.
Kyiv’s military reported retaking 75 towns and cities over the past month, but said momentum had slowed as fighting turned into the kind of grueling back-and-forth that characterized Russia’s months-long offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region.
On Saturday, Ukrainian troops tried to advance south along the banks of the Dnieper River toward the regional capital, also called Kherson, but gained ground, according to Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Moscow-based administration in the occupied region.
“The lines of defense worked and the situation remained under the full control of the Russian military,” he wrote on his messaging app channel.
North and east of Kherson, Russian shelling killed two civilians in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Valentyn Resnichenko said. , miscellaneous and a shipping facility.
SIGNIFICANT INCREASE
Russia’s efforts to counter Ukrainian advances by bombing Kyiv and other cities with missiles and mobilizing thousands of reservists constitute a significant escalation in the seven-month war, but they must adjust the dynamics of a confrontation that is now obviously tilted in Ukraine’s favor. . say Western intelligence tests and army experts.
Missile movements alone have little strategic value, inflict widespread human distress and have disrupted lives in villages that have remained relatively intact during the fighting, according to estimates.
Battlefield situations continue to favor Ukraine’s more agile, motivated, and better-armed armed forces, which probably has more merit than Russia’s heavy, ill-equipped, and exhausted armed forces, at least for the foreseeable future.
The United States and other Western officials expect Ukraine to remain in the counteroffensive for much of the coming months, even as weather situations force a slowdown in the war.
“I hope Ukraine will continue to do everything it can over the winter to regain its territory and be effective on the battlefield,” U. S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in Brussels last week. “More recently, we noticed that they are very effective either in the east and in the south, because they have taken a lot of territory from the Russians. “
The speed of the fight has already slowed in days as Ukraine consolidates the positions it recently gained.
Speed will slow further as winter brings snow and ice to the east and dust southward to the terrain where most recent battles have taken place, according to military experts. At some point in the coming months, weather situations may simply force Ukraine to halt its advances, said a Western official who spoke on condition of anonymity discussing sensitive issues. But for now, “Ukrainians maintain the initiative and momentum,” he said.
The Ukrainian military, which vastly outperformed Russia at the start of the war, now outperforms the Russian military in almost every aspect, he said, from the complicated Western artillery systems it uses to locate Russian targets far from the front lines to the availability and quality of infantrymen it can bring into battle.
Russia continues to suffer heavy losses in its forces and apparatus and digs up defensive positions, while Ukraine receives new and technologically complex weapons materials from its Western allies. Usa. U. S. Intelligence tests suggest that Russia lost 6,000 tanks, armored vehicles and other military aircraft during the war, and some of them were captured intact by the Ukrainians, further replenishing their arsenal.
Ukrainian officials say they have not detected any discernible effects from those already presented at the front, estimated at 16,000 by Putin on Friday. But they don’t rule out the option that a large troop influx could simply complicate Ukraine’s hopes for progress, said Yuriy Saks, an adviser to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.
“We don’t need to underestimate our enemy and we perceive that if 200,000 arrive on the battlefield, things can change,” he said.
However, there are doubts about Russia’s ability to properly exercise and equip such a large number of green soldiers, the Western official said. Those that have appeared so far “have been covered up with very, very limited and very, very deficient exercise. “team,” he said. They are really unlikely to have a positive effect in the short term. “
Even the onset of winter can be expected to favor Ukraine, said a Ukrainian government defense adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity because he has permission to speak to the media. Russia is struggling to supply sleeping bags and other winter apparatus to all its soldiers, while Ukraine’s cold-weather allies such as Canada, Estonia and Lithuania are offering tens of thousands of winter uniforms, he said.
The mobilization of tens of thousands of green and ill-equipped infantrymen in a harsh winter environment like Ukraine’s, where temperatures drop well below freezing, may lead to further demoralization among infantrymen recruited by the force, the adviser said. In addition, Russia also wants experienced and capable officials. and commanders to lead the new men, however, their existing leadership ranks have already suffered heavy casualties and are worn down by months of fighting, he said.
“Russia hopes to achieve some victories thanks to its numerical superiority,” the adviser said. “If we need to win this war, let’s think about technological superiority. This is not a Soviet way of fighting infantry to infantry.
“We are in a position to fight to the end, but at the same time we will have to not play this game, according to the Russian view, in which the lives of infantrymen do not matter,” he added.
Russia’s ability to maintain missile movements is expected to diminish, further restricting its characteristics on the battlefield, according to Western officials and military experts. In particular, Russia is believed to lack precision-guided missiles that can be used to target key sites.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry announced Friday that Russia began the war with 1,844 precision-guided missiles, adding sea-launched Kalibr missiles, land-launched Iskanders and air-launched Kh-101 and Kh-555, of which only 609 remain. Western officials said the figures are in line with their estimates.
Russia still has large stockpiles of unguided missiles that it can use to attack cities, without precision, and is very likely to continue to use them to try to demoralize the Ukrainian population, the government adviser said.
But as long as the moves affect civilians and civilian infrastructure rather than critical army targets, “they are not going to change the course of this war,” said Konrad Muzyka, director of Poland-based defense consultancy Rochan.
The data in this article provided through James C. McKinley Jr. of The New York Times, through Yesica Fisch and Leo Correa of The Associated Press and through Liz Sly and Ellen Nakashima of The Washington Post.