The Russians fired 19 Kh-101 and Kh-555 cruise missiles into Ukraine on the morning of 8 December, with the Ukrainian air defence forces claiming to have destroyed 14 of them.
The spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, on air during the national public news report said: "This morning, we saw the launch of Kh-101 and Kh-555 cruise missiles from, according to initial reports, nine Russian Tu-95 strategic aircraft.
The Russian bombers split into several groups and launched the missiles; of the 19 missiles launched, 14 missiles were destroyed."
Ihnat said the missiles were shot down in the Kiev and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
"First they were heading towards Dnipropetrovsk and from there some of the missiles headed towards Kiev and some hit infrastructure facilities in Dnipropetrovsk Region.
Unfortunately, we were unable to shoot them all down. Unfortunately, we already know that one person was killed," Ihnat said, referring to a fatality in Dnipropetrovsk Region that occurred in the attack.
Why Medvedev spoke of a dire danger of a US-Russia rift
The risk of a direct clash between Russia and NATO has never been greater, as on the front the Ukrainians have been under about 100 attacks a day and have been slowly but surely retreating for several days.
"The threat of direct conflict between Russia and the NATO countries, with the conflict escalating into World War III, has never been more real."
This was stated by the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev.
"Never since the Cuban missile crisis has there been such a real threat of direct conflict between Russia and NATO leading to World War III," he wrote on Telegram.
At the same time, Medvedev stressed that the administration of US President Joe Biden is engaging in primitive congressional blackmail to extract money for a "secondary state in the process of disintegration," as he called Ukraine.
Medvedev, it will be recalled, said in October that NATO is steadily increasing its military presence near Russian territory.
"America will intervene" Will it cause unrest in the vast Russian country?
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the US is increasingly focused on changing the government and organizing internal unrest in Russia.
"The US has not only launched a hybrid war against Russia, which is being waged, apparently, down to the last Ukrainian, but it even has the task of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia by demonstrating an increasing focus on changing the government in Moscow, organizing internal Russian unrest," Ryabkov said.
According to him, under these circumstances, the scenario of a confrontation between Moscow and Washington has become "a real situation from which to start".
At the same time, Ryabkov did not rule out that further escalation by the United States could lead to the termination of Russian-American diplomatic relations.
On the other hand, several Western media outlets have been publishing information for several days that the Russian president's regime is panicking about the upcoming 2024 elections.
According to Western analysts, it is clear to Putin that his "position is shaking" in the sense that he no longer has such clear and broad support, because more and more Russians are dissatisfied with the war in Ukraine and more and more petitions are being signed. by the mothers of Russian fighters who were taken to the front.
The signatures collected, as reported, amount to hundreds of thousands.
It was noted, as reported by the Western media, that the Russian propaganda machine has already begun to use the narrative of American interference in the Russian elections.
Russians are overwhelmingly stating that they support the war in Ukraine, ( there are voices to the contrary), estimating that it is nearing its end due to the defeats on the ground by the Ukrainians.
