Ukraine is warning of another Russian offensive towards Kyiv (Kiev) in early 2023 as a fresh missile barrage causes power outages across the Eastern European country.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, General Valery Zaluzhniy, and General Oleksandr Syrskiy warned of Russian forces making another thrust towards the Ukrainian capital — the northern front was abandoned relatively early in the war following a failed attempt to encircle the city and a hair-raising battle for notorious Chernobyl nuclear zone, which was briefly under Russian control — as early as January in an interview with The Economist magazine.
“The Russians are preparing some 200,000 fresh troops. I have no doubt they will have another go at Kyiv,” said General Zaluzhniy.
“Russian mobilisation has worked,” he said of Vladimir Putin’s efforts to get 300,000 men with prior military experience back into uniform through what the Kremlin calls a “partial mobilisation”.
In a separate interview with another British news outlet, the leftist Guardian newspaper, Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov issued similar warnings — though the numbers he put on Russia’s forces were slightly different.
Reznikov suggested that, while the first 150,000 new troops were being used to replenish Russia’s depleted invasion force, “[t]he second part of the mobilisation, 150,000 approximately, started their training courses in different camps,” with a view to using them in more ambitious operations.
“The [draftees] do a minimum of three months to prepare. It means they are trying to start the next wave of the offensive probably in February, like last year. That’s their plan,” he claimed.
The warnings come as Russia is once again bombarding Ukrainian infrastructure — and in particular energy infrastructure — with missiles, causing power outages in Kyiv, Kharkiv (Kharkov), and Zelensky’s home city of Kryvyi Rih, among other locations.
“The enemy is massively attacking,” said Oleksiy Kuleba, who heads the military administration in the capital region, urging citizens to stay in shelter and to be careful in terms of what they share about the strikes.
“I ask residents not to photograph or comment on the work of the military and air defence forces. Don’t help the enemy plan their next attacks,” he urged.
Vitaliy Klitshko, the former heavyweight world champion boxer and current mayor of Kyiv, said there were “interruptions in water supply in all areas of the capital” and that all metro services were suspended as a result of the strikes.
Western officials have long suggested that Russia is running out of missiles, but they continue to conduct large-scale strikes, with speculation that they may have stockpiled key components prior to being hit with sanctions related to the invasion and stepped up their domestic production.
British officials also believe they are attempting to procure a large number of missiles from the Islamic Republic of Iran, having already deployed several waves of Iranian “suicide” drones against Ukrainian targets.
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