Ukraine war – voices and developments – Lavrov threatens Ukraine – and fears an attack on Putin

“Pathological contempt for Ukraine”: Kyiv sharply criticizes Orban

6.30 p.m.: The Ukrainian leadership has sharply criticized Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his stance on the Ukraine war. “The remarks made by Hungary’s prime minister demonstrate a pathological disdain for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people who oppose Russian aggression, and political short-sightedness,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said on its website on Tuesday. The trigger was a statement by Orban that the war could be ended if the US stopped providing arms to Kyiv.

Orban is thus calling for Ukraine’s defeat, but this would only increase the risk of Russian aggression towards Hungary itself, according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. “The Hungarian leader should ask himself if he wants peace.” Relations between Hungary and Ukraine have been tense since the beginning of the war. Orban has repeatedly shown resistance to EU sanctions against Russia.

Lavrov blames the US for the Ukraine war

4:26 p.m: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sees the USA as the main culprit and at the same time the greatest beneficiary of the Ukraine war. The strategic goal of the United States and its allies in NATO is a “victory over Russia on the battlefield” in order to weaken or even destroy Russia, Lavrov said in an interview with the Russian state agency TASS on Tuesday. Washington is also pursuing the goal of destroying Russia’s traditional relations with Europe.

Russia moves fighter jets from military base after drone attack

3.50 p.m.: The Russian military has probably moved some of its fighter jets from the Russian military base in Engels to other airfields. This was said by an Air Force spokesman on Ukrainian television on Tuesday.

Three soldiers were killed in a drone attack on Sunday. At the beginning of December, drones attacked the base in the Engels region. Russia has stationed long-range bombers there, which fly attacks on critical infrastructure in Ukraine.

Air alert throughout Ukraine

2:27 p.m.: Air alert is now in effect across Ukraine. This is reported by the opposition Belarusian news channel Nexta.

Russian troops report successful attacks in Ukraine

1:17 p.m.: In fighting and artillery duels on various sectors of the front, Russian troops said they inflicted heavy losses on the Ukrainian defenders on Tuesday. Around 60 Ukrainian soldiers were “destroyed” in fighting around Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, the state agency TASS reported, citing the Ministry of Defense in Moscow.

Around 30 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in an artillery attack in the neighboring Luhansk region. In addition, a number of Ukrainian guns are said to have been destroyed in various artillery duels from Cherson in the south to Kharkiv in the east. The information could not be independently verified.

Report: Wagner soldiers kill and rob family of eight in eastern Ukraine

12.30 p.m.: In the Russian-held town of Makiivka in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, several men robbed and killed a family of eight. Four children were among the victims, Russian and Ukrainian media reported unanimously on Tuesday. Cash, mobile phones and a car were stolen during the robbery. According to the Russian state agency Tass, three suspects have already been arrested.

According to Ukrainian media, the suspects are members of the notorious Wagner mercenaries. This had recently recruited new members in Russian prisons.

London: Fighting concentrated at Bachmut and Swatowe

11:56 am: In the last 48 hours, fighting in Ukraine has been concentrated in the Bakhmut region of Donetsk region and near Svatove in Luhansk. This emerges from the latest update from the British Ministry of Defence. “Russia continues to frequently initiate small-scale attacks in these areas, although few areas have changed hands,” the report said.

With regard to the Russian armed forces sent to Belarus, the secret service writes that an elite tank unit is said to have been among them. They probably carried out training before they were deployed. Still, it could be that the support units needed to make them combat-ready are missing.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov issues Ukraine an ultimatum for four regions

9:28 a.m: Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov demands that Ukraine must comply with Moscow’s proposals in four areas. Otherwise, the Russian military would intervene, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.

“The enemy is aware of our proposals to demilitarize and denazify the regime-controlled areas and eliminate the threats they pose to Russian security, including our new areas,” Lavrov said, repeating the false Nazi accusations against Ukraine that Russia justifies its war of aggression, saying that if Ukraine does not comply with these demands, “the Russian army will take matters into its own hands”.

In an interview with the Russian news agency TASS, Lavrov also stated that the West wanted to kill Putin. “There, some ‘unnamed officials’ from the Pentagon actually threatened to deal a ‘decapitation blow’ to the Kremlin – in fact, we are talking about threatening the physical elimination of the Russian head of state,” Lavrov says indignantly. So far, those threats could not be independently verified. It is therefore questionable whether Lavrov is not inventing the alleged threats for propaganda purposes.

Russia has been claiming control of the four regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Cherson through illegal sham referendums since September. Just a few weeks after the annexation, Cherson was recaptured and about 10,000 square kilometers of land was liberated. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the situation in the occupied territories was “extremely complicated”.

Russia kills four Ukrainians saboteurs in border region

09.20 am: According to the Russian domestic secret service FSB, four saboteurs were killed on the Russian-Ukrainian border. The FSB said the Ukrainians were “liquidated” trying to cross the border in the Bryansk region. They were said to have carried home-made explosive devices, foreign arms and ammunition, and communications and navigation equipment to carry out terrorist attacks on Russian territory. Ukrainian media reported on Tuesday that the men were performing military duties against Russia’s war of aggression.

A soldier of the Ukrainian Armed Forces confirmed the death of his comrades in the Telegram news channel, whose names and photos he also published. However, he assumed that the men were killed by a mine explosion. According to the FSB, they were already killed on December 25.

For months, the Russian authorities have been complaining about attacks from the Ukrainian side in the area near the border, but also in the hinterland. The FSB now reports arrests of suspected saboteurs and terrorists in different parts of Russia on an almost daily basis. There is also repeated talk of drone attacks. But there are hardly any confirmations like this from the Ukrainian side. Again and again the attacks resulted in deaths, injuries and destruction.

Lavrov: Ukraine wants to draw NATO deeper into the conflict

8:21 am: Russia accuses Ukraine of wanting to drag NATO deeper into the war. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the TASS state agency in an interview published on Tuesday night: “The (Kiev) regime is trying on its behalf to draw the Americans and other NATO members deeper into the vortex of the conflict in the hope that to make a hasty clash with the Russian army inevitable.” In this context, Lavrov recalled the impact of a rocket in Poland in mid-November and described the Ukrainian reaction to it as a provocation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to “pass the projectile as a Russian missile,” Lavrov said. “It’s good that Washington and Brussels had the wisdom at the time not to fall for it.” However, this incident showed that nothing can stop Kyiv. The West had recently assumed that the projectile was a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile used to defend against Russian attacks.

Lavrov criticized the West’s course. He constantly speculates that Russia is about to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. “We are talking about completely different matters here – the political course of the West, aimed at total restraint from Russia, is extremely dangerous. It poses risks of a direct armed clash between the nuclear powers,” Lavrov claimed. Moscow always emphasizes that there can be no winners in nuclear war and “it must never be unleashed”.

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