Russians kill three people and injure five more in Donetsk Oblast

Russians killed three people and injured five more in attacks on Pokrovsk hromadaі and Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk Oblast on December 3, 2024, according to Vadym Filashkin, Head of Donetsk Oblast Military Administration.

He reported that a drone strike damaged a vehicle in Kotlyne. In Pokrovsk, Russians destroyed eight multi-storey buildings and two cars, killing one person. Later, Filashkin revealed that Russian artillery shelling in Kostiantynivka killed a 52-year-old man and left three others moderately injured.

The attack damaged three multi-storey buildings, an administrative building, a gas pipe, and a car. Filashkin urged Donetsk Oblast residents to evacuate to safer regions of Ukraine.

On the morning of 22 November, Filashkin reported that a Russian strike on the village of Krasnotorka near Kramatorsk, killed one person and injured two others.

ZMINA consistently reports on the ongoing international crimes in the Donetsk Oblast. 

Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, stated that the country has learned a painful lesson from the hopes of the Budapest Memorandum and that mistakes of this nature cannot be made again.  As the European Pravda news outlet reported, he recalled the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum, according to which Ukraine agreed to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances.

“This is a good reminder that no decisions about long-term security solutions at the expense of Ukrainian security are acceptable. This document failed to provide Ukraine with security, as well as transatlantic security. We must avoid repeating such mistakes,” Sybiha asserted.

“That’s why we will discuss with my partners the concept of ‘peace through strength.’ We have a clear understanding of which steps we need from our friends to do our ‘homework’,” he added.

On the eve of the Brussels meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Ukraine said it was refusing to accept the guarantees that are substitutes for NATO membership.

“With the bitter experience of the Budapest Memorandum behind us, we will not accept any alternatives, surrogates or substitutes for Ukraine’s full membership in NATO,” the Foreign Ministry emphasises. One thing to note is that all security agreements with other states signed by Ukraine during 2024 emphasise that they are not meant to be substitutes for NATO membership, so they do not fall under this definition,” the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reads.

The Foreign Ministry appeals to “the United States and the United Kingdom, signatories to the Budapest Memorandum, France and China, which have acceded to it, and all states-parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” to politically support Ukraine’s invitation to NATO right now, which will be “an effective counter to Russian blackmail”.

The Foreign Ministry also recalls that it is not only about Ukrainian and not only about European security, as the attack on Ukraine, in violation of the 1994 agreements, “undermined confidence in the very idea of nuclear disarmament” and revived “active attempts by various countries from the Indo-Pacific region and the Middle East to the Euro-Atlantic area to create or expand their existing nuclear arsenals”.

While Russian Armed Forces continue advancing near Sukhi Yaly, Kostiantynopolske, Dachenske, Pushkine, and Kurakhove in the Donetsk Oblast, Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg’s foreign minister, spoke out against Ukraine’s NATO membership. According to Suspilne, Germany and the United States are not yet ready to support an official invitation to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told  Sky News that Ukraine had requested equipment for 10 military brigades to counter Russian aggression, but Western partners have fully equipped only two and a half brigades.

Zelenskyy emphasized that Ukraine’s primary challenge lies in military equipment, not personnel numbers.

“Our partners discuss mobilization, but the real issue is the 10 brigades they haven’t equipped,” he said. “I requested this equipment more than a year ago. We agreed with the United States and European allies, and today, Europe and the United States have fully equipped just two and a half brigades.”

He pointed to “bureaucracy, some [decision makers] don’t think that this is the priority” as reasons for this situation, adding that “it’s always the same way during this war”.

 Zelenskyy remarked that some European leaders had strong opinions on Ukrainian mobilisation. 

“I replied to them, ‘What do you want? Do you just want these soldiers to die, as they will without your weapons?'” he added.

He stressed that troop deployment decisions aim to preserve as many Ukrainian lives as possible.