Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, stated Wednesday that his country’s top objective for 2024 is to regain control of its airspace, as Russia’s full-scale attack approaches its third year.
His remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos came just hours after Russian drone and missile attacks injured 20 people in Ukraine.
The drone barrage caused enormous holes in the southern city of Odesa, where AFP photographers observed residential buildings burnt as a result of the assault.
“In 2024, of course, the priority is to throw Russia from the skies,” Kuleba said in an address to the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Because the one who controls the skies will define when and how the war will end.”
Kyiv has long called on the West to provide modern fighter jets to support its forces stationed in the country’s south and east.
President Emmanuel Macron announced this week that France would send a new batch of approximately 40 SCALP long-range cruise missiles, as well as hundreds of bombs, to help Kyiv battle the Russian invasion.
Even still, the vow pales in comparison to the arsenal of weapons that Russian soldiers have lately unleashed on Ukraine.
Beating Russia ‘takes time’
Officials in Kyiv have reported a sharp increase in civilian casualties since December, as Moscow escalates air attacks, reversing a declining trend seen earlier in 2023, the United Nations has warned.
Earlier on Wednesday, Kyiv stated that Russia had launched 20 Iranian-designed attack drones at locations in southern Ukraine overnight, but that all but one had been destroyed by its air defense systems.
The conflict has reached a deadlock after Ukraine’s long-awaited counter-offensive last year failed to penetrate Russian lines.
Kuleba urged Ukraine’s important Western backers to be patient, claiming that with the right assistance, Ukraine might win.
“We are fighting a powerful enemy, a very big enemy that doesn’t sleep,” said Kuleba. “It takes time.
“We defeated them on the land in 2022. We defeated them in the sea in 2023 and we are completely focused on defeating them in the air in 2024,” he told a discussion panel at the forum in Switzerland.
His statements echo those of President Volodymyr Zelensky, who stated on Tuesday that Ukraine “must gain air superiority” in order to make “progress on the ground”.
Several NATO countries are actively training Ukrainian pilots on American-made F-16 combat jets. Denmark said earlier this month that it would transfer 19 F-16s during the second quarter of this year.
Washington has previously refused to accept the jet transfers for fear of being labelled a direct belligerent in the Ukraine conflict by Moscow.
Meanwhile, Moscow confirmed on Wednesday that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit to New York next week for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
When asked if Lavrov would attend the 23 January Security Council debate on the Middle East in person, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded “yes,” according to TASS.