Kiev, “by the end of the year we could arrive in Crimea”
L’Ukrainian army may arrive in the Crimea by the end of this year. This was supported by the Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister, Volodymyr Havrylov, who commented on the withdrawal of the Russian army from the city of Kherson to the microphones of Sky News. Havrylov expressed the hope that the war could end next spring and declared that the Ukrainian military is ready to fight even in the harsh winter. “The arrival of our soldiers in the Crimea is only a matter of timeit will happen sooner or later. An unexpected event like the collapse of the Putin regime could allow us to resume the whole Crimea by the end of December. It’s a possibility that shouldn’t be ruled out,” he said the deputy minister of Ukraine.
According to Havrylov “the unexpected event” capable of distorting the dynamics of the conflict can be “the disappearance of Putin for obscure reasons“, or the “position taken by someone within the circle of Russian power” or “the reaction of a society disillusioned by the huge loss of soldiers“.
Havrylov considers Russia’s use of a nuclear arsenal unlikely, however he specifies that even in that case Kiev’s army will continue to fight. “I don’t see it as a likely scenario, but it would be a tragedy for everyone. However, an attack with tactical nuclear weapons does not pose a threat to stop ours“, he said Havrylov. Again according to the deputy minister, the war could end in the spring, a circumstance which however does not herald a real end to the conflict. “The end of the conflict could happen if only because Russia will need to strengthen itself. The people paid in blood and we have made enormous efforts to achieve these results. Everyone in Ukraine is aware that any delay or freezing of the conflict would constitute just a new stage of this war against Ukraine’s existence,” Havrylov said.
On the possibility of a negotiation the deputy minister was finally categoricalcalling it “only possible when the Russians have abandoned every single inch of Ukrainian soil”.
Risk of escalation
As it reports Republic, a NATO naval team – abbreviated as SNMG1 – was engaged in an exercise with anti-aircraft defense systems: in these operations cannons and missiles are managed in an automated manner by computers, because reaction times must be extremely rapid. While the Dutch frigate Tromp and the French one Paul Chevalier were participating in this wargame, two Russian fighter-bombers headed towards the ships. They ignored the radio messages urging them to leave and flew over the two frigates, passing them at low altitude: “They were less than a hundred meters away.”
Moscow-Tehran agreement for the production of drones
Moscow has reached an agreement with Tehran to start manufacturing hundreds of armed drones on Russian territory. The Washington Post writes it, citing intelligence material and sources in Western security agencies. Russian and Iranian officials, according to the American newspaper, finalized the agreement during a meeting in Iran earlier this month and now the two countries are moving quickly to transfer projects and key components that could allow the start of the production within months, said three officials familiar with the question.
The agreement, if fully implemented, would represent a further deepening of the Russian-Iranian alliance which has already provided support to the military campaign of Fly in Ukraineofficials interviewed said. The Islamic Republic has always denied supplying Russia with drones for use in Ukraine. By acquiring its own assembly line, Russia could significantly increase its stockpile of Iranian drones, inexpensive and highly destructive weapons.
The details of the Iran-Russia deal were finalized at a meeting in early November involving a team of negotiators from the Russian defense industry who traveled to Tehran to process the logistics. A separate delegation, headed by the secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, traveled to Tehran on November 9 for discussionsamong other arguments, of economic sanctions and other “Western interference” in the affairs of the two countries, Iranian and Russian media reported.
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