THE Ukrainian missiles that fall on one crowded bakery, panic, blood, corpses, and civilians trapped under the rubble. This is the outcome hypothesized by the local Russian commands of a raid which they attribute to the Kiev forces in Lisichank, in the eastern separatist region of Luhansk. Military sources cited by the Ria Novosti agency spoke of at least 20 confirmed victims (and ten injured, five of them seriously), while the search for other bodies continued. And the same sources say that the bombing may have been carried out with missiles fired from the American-made Himars launch systems.
In Moscow, meanwhile, around twenty journalists from Russian and foreign newspapers were stopped, and released after a few hours, when they tried to cover a small demonstration by wives of soldiers mobilized for the conflict in Ukraine who were asking for their return home. A form of protest that has so far been tolerated by the authorities, who now however seem to fear a union with other opposition movements. For weeks, a small group of soldiers’ wives have gathered near the Kremlin to protest peacefully, symbolically placing flowers on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. So far, the authorities have let things happen, also given the small number of participants, so as not to run the risk of provoking further reactions. Especially in view of the presidential elections scheduled for March, in which Vladimir Putin will run for a fifth term. This time, on the occasion of the 500th day of the partial military mobilization decreed by the president in September 2022, some opposition figures, including members of Alexei Navalny’s staff, had appealed for the population to support the initiatives of the soldiers’ wives. According to an AFP journalist who was among those arrested, around forty women took part in the rally. But the agents intervened above all against the reporters. According to Ovd-info, an NGO that records opposition activities and provides legal assistance, a total of 27 people were stopped in front of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, including 20 journalists (then released after a few hours), all men. Subsequently, another 7 people were taken into custody on nearby Ilyinka Street, where they had moved to continue protesting in front of the headquarters of Putin’s electoral committee.
In the meantime, in Ukraine several women are mobilizing to obtain the right to be fertilized with the frozen sperm of their comrades who died at the front, or who have suffered injuries that compromise their reproductive abilities. According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the Kiev Parliament this week began procedures to amend a law that currently prevents this practice. According to the promoters of the initiative, their proposal should also help Ukraine deal with a dramatic demographic crisis – which began well before the start of the war – which has seen the population fall from over 50 million at the time of independence in 1991 to less than 30 million today due to emigration. Back on the ground, the Ukrainians continue their drone attacks on Russian territory against energy infrastructure. At a Lukoil refinery in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), a fire broke out on Friday night due to the impact of an unmanned aircraft launched by Kiev forces that hit the plant, according to the governor.