THE UNITED Kingdom’s supply of long-range missiles to the Kiev regime will demand an appropriate response from the Russian military, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.
He pointed out that the Kremlin had taken London’s move to send long-range missiles to Kiev ‘quite negatively’.
‘It will demand an appropriate response from our military who will definitely make the decisions that are required in military terms,’ Peskov said.
The British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace confirmed on Thursday, that the United Kingdom is supplying Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles.
These missiles have the range to strike deep into Russia’s new regions.
The Storm Shadow is a long-range cruise missile, jointly developed by the UK and France, which is usually launched from the air. Its operational range exceeds 250 kilometres.
Four special armoured trains operating in the special military operation area in Ukraine as part of Russian railway troops successfully repelled all the Ukrainian saboteurs’ attacks while accomplishing their combat missions, Chief of the Defence Ministry’s Main Railway Troops Department Lieutenant-General Oleg Kosenkov told TASS on Thursday.
‘The most important objective of the Baikal, Amur, Volga and Yenisei special trains is to accompany trains with military cargo and promptly restore damaged rail tracks, if necessary. In the course of fulfilling their assignments, the special trains successfully repelled all the attacks by subversive/reconnaissance groups of Ukrainian armed formations, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy,’ the general said.
In instances when operational railways are damaged in the special military operation area, the damaged facilities and sections are restored by specialised units and mobile tactical groups, he added.
As the general specified, Russian railway troops are engaged in ‘conducting technical reconnaissance, demining railway tracks, restoring damaged sections, accompanying military cargo, building bridges, clearing debris and carrying out earthwork’ in the area of the special military operation in Ukraine.
‘The troops’ operations in the special military operation area provide reliable technical support for railways and military carriages,’ he said.
According to the Russian Defence Ministry’s data, the special armoured trains are armed with ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft guns to destroy aerial and ground targets and AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers.
They are also outfitted with electronic warfare systems to suppress remote-controlled explosives, and also with drones to reconnoitre the routes of their movement. The combat teams of the special trains are armed with standard small arms.
Servicemen attached to Battlegroup East destroyed a Ukrainian command vehicle near Grigorovka with a Lancet barrage munition, Battlegroup East Spokesman Alexander Gordeyev said on Thursday.
‘A Lancet barrage munition destroyed an enemy command vehicle near the Grigorovka settlement,’ he said.
The spokesman added that a Tor anti-aircraft missile system shot down a Leleka drone.
Servicemen attached to Battlegroup East have destroyed a temporary deployment site of the Ukrainian military near the Velikaya Novoselka settlement using a Tulpan self-propelled heavy mortar, Battlegroup East Spokesman Alexander Gordeyev said on Thursday.
‘In the South Donetsk area, units of Battlegroup East, supported by artillery, destroyed an enemy reconnaissance group. In the area of Velikaya Novoselka, a self-propelled heavy mortar Tulpan destroyed a temporary deployment site of the Ukrainian armed forces,’ he said.
According to Gordeyev, in the Zaporozhye area, air reconnaissance with the help of an Akatsiya self-propelled howitzer discovered and destroyed the enemy’s temporary deployment site in Gulyaipolye.
Russian forces hit several locations of mercenaries of the so-called Foreign Legion of the Ukrainian army as a result of overnight strikes on the Kiev-controlled city of Zaporozhye, Vladimir Rogov, the leader of the movement We Are Together With Russia, said on Thursday.
‘Late in the evening (on Wednesday) there was a shelling of the city of Zaporozhye. Warehouses with weapons and ammunition were hit. There was also another shelling at around 1:30am Moscow time. Precise strikes were carried out at locations of the Ukrainian army’s Foreign Legion militants. They definitely sustained losses,’ he said, adding that among the mercenaries there were some English and Polish speakers as well as supporters of the self-proclaimed and non-existent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
On May 10, Rogov said that Russian forces were conducting massive artillery and missile strikes on Ukrainian positions in the Zaporozhye area, destroying depots, strongholds and command centres.
The acting governor of Zaporozhye Region, Yevgeny Balitsky, earlier said that Russian forces were ready to repel a Ukrainian offensive and launch a counter-offensive.
Eight civilians, including two children, sustained wounds on Thursday as a result of Ukrainian troops shelling populated localities in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the mission of the DPR at the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination of issues Related to Ukrainian War Crimes (JCCC) said.
‘Donetsk (the Petrovsky district): at Tvardovsky Street, 4, a child, a girl born in 2019, three women born in 1940, 1966 and 1988, a man born in 1964 were injured. At Magnitnaya Street, 36, a woman born in 1963 was wounded,’ a statement on the mission’s Telegram channel said.
In Aleksandrovka, a girl born in 2010 and a man born in 1975 sustained wounds in the shelling.
The mission also reported destruction in some communities as a result of bombardments. Private residential buildings were damaged in Donetsk and Aleksandrovka, as well as a power transmission line in Gorlovka. In the Golmovsky settlement, shells hit apartment buildings, private houses and a gas pipeline.
More than 4,500 residents of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) lost their lives since the start of the escalation of the conflict in Donbass on February 17 of the last year, the DPR mission to the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination of issues related to Ukrainian war crimes reported on Tuesday.
In total, 4,527 noncombatants suffered death in DPR, including 135 children, over 445 days of conflict escalation, the mission informed. 4,431 civilians were wounded, including 284 children, it noted.
More than ten thousand residential houses and more than two thousand and a half civilian infrastructural facilities suffered damage, the mission said.
- Serbia cannot impose sanctions against the Russian Federation for political and moral reasons and has no intention of doing so, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told Prva television on Thursday.
‘The question (of imposing sanctions on Russia) is not a question of whether you are pro-Eastern or pro-Western, it’s a question of whether you are pro-Serbian.
‘Back in the early days of the conflict, we announced a (Serbian) Security Council decision saying that we denounce the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity for fundamental reasons, for that is a principle that should be valid for all countries, but we cannot and will not join the anti-Russian sanctions for political, economic, human and moral reasons, as we once used to be the victims of sanctions, too,’ Dacic, who is also Serbia’s first deputy prime minister, explained.
He said that Serbia has gotten used to being under permanent pressure from the West; that’s ‘their job’, and this is how Westerners ‘earn their keep’, he added.
‘They would like everybody to have the same attitude toward Russia. We are in a precarious position, because we are facing issues with our own territorial integrity and Russia helps us protect that,’ Serbia’s top diplomat said.
After the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in an address to the nation following a Security Council meeting that although Serbia supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity, it will not impose sanctions against Russia.
He also announced that Belgrade is suspending army and police drills with all foreign partners. He noted that Serbia considers Russia and Ukraine to be brotherly nations, regrets what is going on in Eastern Europe and is ready to offer humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.
