Victory Chronicles-DAY 706

According to Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff spokesman Andriy Kovalev, a Russian Su-34 was shot down over the Luhansk Oblast by Ukrainian air defense systems on January 29. 

This brings the total number of Russian military aircraft lost since the full-scale invasion began to 332 as of January 30. The recent downing of the Su-34 is part of a series of losses for Russia, including the A-50 Beriev military reconnaissance aircraft and an Il-22 air command post. 

According to the Institute for the Study of War, these losses seem to have led Russia to change its air strategy by reducing the number of sorties conducted by the Russian Air Force.

Over the past 24 hours, Russia has carried out attacks in 11 Oblasts of Ukraine, killing at least six people and wounding nine others. Ukraine’s Air Force says Russia launched 35 Shahid-type kamikaze drones against Ukraine overnight. Reportedly, 15 of them were shot down over Mykolaiv, Sumy, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Kyiv Oblasts.

Russian troops launched an air attack on settlements in the Mykolaiv Oblast, resulting in the downing of a UAV. The wreckage of the UAV caused a truck carrying sunflower seeds to catch fire on the road, leading to a fire that firefighters extinguished. The fire was contained to an area of 70 square meters. The driver of the truck was injured and hospitalized.

During night reconnaissance, operators of one of the Special Forces units discovered a Russian infantry fighting vehicle on the left bank of the Kherson Oblast, which was hunting for Ukrainian UAV crews. 

“Attack drones promptly struck the enemy target. As a result, the enemy’s BMP was destroyed to the ground, and Ukrainian pilots continued their work to destroy the occupiers on the left bank of the Dnipro,” the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement.

Russia appears to be fueling and seizing on neo-imperialist and nationalist sentiments in Europe in order to drive wedges between Ukraine and its western neighbors. Right-wing Hungarian politician and Our Homeland Movement party leader Laszlo Toroczkai stated on January 27 that Hungary should claim Ukraine’s Zakarpattia Oblast in the event of a Ukrainian defeat in the war.

Right-wing Romanian politician and Alliance for the Union of Romanians party leader Claudiu Tarziu emphasized on January 29 that Romania needs to “reintegrate” areas of Ukraine neighboring Romania where Romanian populations lived in order to maintain sovereignty. Russian sources amplified Toroczkai’s and Tarziu’s statements and emphasized these ultranationalist Romanian and Hungarian claims to Ukrainian territory. 

Russia previously proposed the idea of a “partitioned Ukraine” between Russia and the West prior to the full-scale invasion. Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials reignited this narrative in December 2023 by claiming that Ukraine has historical “territorial disputes” with Poland, Romania, and Hungary but could maintain its “sovereignty” if the whole country is comprised of the borders of Lviv Oblast.

The Russian ultranationalist framework of the Russian World (Russkiy Mir) concept appears to have gained traction among nationalist European factions as applied to their own nationalist ideologies, and Russian information space actors likely seek to leverage this ideological bent to drive a wedge between Ukraine and its European neighbors.

Senior fighter Oleksandr Shkvara died on August 28, 2023, while performing his duties on the territory of the engineering company of his military unit in the village of Husynka, Kharkiv Oblast. After his heavy battles, the defender’s heart gave out. In July, he turned 40 years old.

Oleksandr was born in the village of Klishkivtsi, Chernivtsi Oblast. He graduated from the local high school. Later, he learned the builder profession at a college in Kyiv. For some time, he lived in Irpin. Before the war, he worked at a construction site in the capital. He dreamed of having his own family and planned to get married.

When the full-scale war began, the man returned to his native village. In April 2022, he joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine because he did not want the enemy to reach his home. He served in the 3rd Separate Tank Brigade. He was a driver of the transport unit of an engineering platoon. For 14 months, together with his fighters, he performed combat missions at the front line.

“Since he was 13 years old, he had a well-established team, as he had many friends, and provided construction services to the population. He was never afraid of work, he just took it and did it. Oleksandr was honest, diligent, successful and modest in everything he did. He was a man of his word… Shortly before his death, Oleksandr was at home on vacation. He met his beloved Yulia, with whom he dreamed of starting a family. After staying at home for a few days, he rushed to his comrades. The call of his heart and military duty called him to battle. He was in a hurry to stop the enemy as soon as possible, to expel them from his native land, so that he could get married on his next vacation. But Oleksandr’s life was cut short…” the Klishkovetska community said.

The fighter was buried in his native village. A memorial plaque in his honor was installed on the facade of the Klishkovets school. Oleksandr is survived by his mother Yevheniia Mykhailivna, sister Nataliia, beloved Yuliia, other relatives, friends and fighters-in-arms.

*Oleksandr’s story on the Heroes Memorial – a platform for stories about the fallen defenders of Ukraine.

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