Russian armed forces have intensified their war on Ukraine with a series of bombardments of Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles earlier this week.
Russian munitions reportedly struck the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and other major cities as Russia launched into Ukraine 90 drones. Ukraine was able to intercept 87 of the drones. However, a 15-year-old boy was killed and seven others wounded by falling debris, as reported by The Guardian.
The Ukrainians have also claimed that Russia’s hypersonic missiles were utilized to carry out the attacks. Hypersonic missiles are weapons that fly faster than the speed of sound. These missiles are considered a major technological advantage that Russia retains over Ukraine and Ukraine’s NATO backers.
The barrage came just one day after Ukrainian forces attacked territory inside Russia. Russia claims that 25 civilians, including five children, were killed by NATO-provided munitions fired by Ukrainian forces in attacks on the Russian city of Belgorod, per The Guardian. This Ukrainian attack was in response to an 18-hour Russian bombardment that claimed the lives of 49 Ukrainian civilians the day before.
The escalating cross-border aerial campaign comes as the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches in February.
Frontline fighting has largely slowed to a crawl as bloody clashes between stagnant and entrenched forces inflict high casualties on the armed forces of both countries.
Due to tightly controlled and potentially falsified information from both countries, it is difficult to estimate how many casualties have resulted in the conflict. However, it is clear from multiple estimates that the number of deaths has climbed into the hundreds of thousands.
President Biden is beginning the new year by asking Congress to authorize an additional $60 billion in aid to Ukraine to keep the NATO-aligned nation in the fight against the vastly larger Russian state. Debates between Republicans and Democrats in Congress over the parameters of this funding are expected to dominate the beginning of the Congressional calendar in 2024.