Ukraine revealed some damage to the strategic Engels base in Russia after an attack targeting it this week, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Italy is considering providing his country with air defense systems, which is a provocation for Moscow.

Russia has announced that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is distributing, through Ukraine, what it described as electronic weapons in a "risky" manner to the international community.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov warned, in a press statement reported by Russia Today, that "NATO's action is fraught with unpredictable consequences for all members of the international community, and that if Russia today is the target, tomorrow any other country opposed to Washington will be in our place." ".

Earlier, the Russian diplomat said that the number of electronic attacks against Russian information centers increased after the start of the war in Ukraine, noting that these attacks originated mainly from North American countries and the European Union.

Last May, the Russian Foreign Ministry revealed that Ukraine had helped US intelligence mobilize an "electronic army" with the aim of harming the infrastructure of Russia and its allies, and accused Washington of working to increase the military development of Ukraine's information space.

On the other hand, important government sites in the capital, Kyiv, were paralyzed, as well as government headquarters, parliament, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other state institutions, a day before the war broke out in Ukraine on February 20, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held Moscow responsible for that cyberattack.

Italy is willing to provide Kyiv with air defense systems

In a related context, Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Italy had expressed its willingness to provide his country with air defense systems, stressing that this would protect Ukrainian airspace.

Zelensky indicated, in his daily video speech, that he held talks with Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, pointing out that Rome is currently studying the delivery of air defense systems to Ukraine.

While Kyiv believes that supplying it with air defense systems reduces the threat of Russian aviation and missiles, Moscow strongly rejects this step and considers it direct interference in the war by Ukraine's allies, and confirmed this after Washington announced providing Kyiv with Patriot air defense systems last week.

On the other hand, Zelensky announced that he would deliver his annual speech on the "state of the nation" before the Ukrainian Parliament, adding, "I want this message not to be a report, but our dialogue with you about the next year," noting that it is about formulating tasks for the future.

The letter is expected to be issued by the end of the week, but Zelensky did not give a specific date.

He also referred to his meeting with the General Staff.


New statements by Lavrov

On the other hand, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow is ready to discuss security issues in Ukraine and other major strategic issues.

Lavrov stressed that it is not possible to communicate with the administration of US President Joe Biden unless Washington realizes the negativity of its current behavior, and that there are no alternatives to building relations of mutual respect with Russia in Ukraine.

In response to Kyiv's proposal to hold peace talks with Moscow under the auspices of the United Nations, the spokeswoman for the international organization said that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres can only mediate on Ukraine if all parties agree to that.

Russian airport Engels after the bombing marches

On the ground, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, Yuriy Ignat, said that several Russian warplanes were transferred from the Russian airport of Engels to other airports, hours after it was targeted two days ago.

Ignat added that in the past hours, a significant decrease in the activity of Russian fighters inside Ukrainian airspace was recorded, due to the possible damage that the airport might have suffered.

The attack on the Russian base of Engels is the second of its kind in a month (agencies)

And the Russian Ministry of Defense announced, on Monday, that air defense systems had thwarted an attack by a Ukrainian drone on the Engels military base in Saratov province, which is the main base for Russian strategic bombers.

While Ukraine did not claim direct responsibility for the attack that killed 3 Russian soldiers, a Ukrainian military official called at the time to wait a few days for satellite images to show the scale of the explosions at the Ingels base, he said.

For his part, the governor of the Ukrainian province of Donetsk, Pavlo Kurlenko, said that the Russian army targeted at dawn yesterday, Tuesday, in the night hours, a number of cities and towns throughout the province and on the axes of Seversk, Liman and Avdiivka.

The Ukrainian General Staff also said that the Ukrainian army repelled the Russian attacks that were launched on cities and towns near the city of Donetsk.

As for Bakhmut and Avdiivka, the commission said that the Russian army targeted more than 25 neighborhoods and residential areas in the two cities, and intensified its bombardment of the city of Marinka in an attempt to advance there.

The authority also confirmed that it is still maintaining its sites in the Kremina and Svatova axis in Lugansk province.

Ukrainian soldiers on one of the fronts in the east of the country (Reuters)

Separate field developments

For its part, the pro-Russian Donetsk authorities reported that 4 civilians were injured in Ukrainian shelling on residential neighborhoods in the city, which is located in the Donbass region, in eastern Ukraine.

She said that the Ukrainian forces bombed the city from yesterday until yesterday morning with more than 100 shells.

In Lugansk, the pro-Russian authorities said that the Ukrainian army is sending reinforcements to the contact lines in the Kremnaya axis, in the east of the region, to compensate for its human losses on the front, as they put it.

On the other hand, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in attacks by Russian forces on the southern Donetsk axis in the Donbass region.

Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that Russian artillery and missile forces destroyed the headquarters of the Ukrainian reserve forces in the city of Kramatorsk, pointing to the implementation of attacks on Ukrainian sites in Zaporizhia and Kobynsk in Kharkiv province.