Ukraine receives “S-300″… Russia expects “close end”

Slovakia, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), announced yesterday (Friday) that it has supplied Ukraine with the Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft missile system, among the specific weapons requested by the Kyiv authorities from Western countries, while Moscow suggested that it would reach To the “close end” of the fighting in Ukraine, in conjunction with the continuation of fierce confrontations to resolve the battle of Mariupol and the Russian forces’ directing a strong air strike near Odessa in southern Ukraine.

Yesterday, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the military operation in Ukraine may end in the coming days, according to two scenarios. Either it will achieve its set goals, or it will reach an agreement through negotiations.”

His words came at a time when Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger announced the deal to deliver S-300 missiles to the Kyiv government, denying at the same time that his country had “become a party to the armed conflict in Ukraine,” explaining that Slovakia is a member of the European Union. And NATO will receive in the coming days an “additional anti-missile defense system” from its allies, without revealing any further details.

Yesterday, Russian-Ukrainian debates were repeated about another crime that occurred this time in the town of Kramatorsk, south of the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine accused the Russian army and allied separatists in the Donetsk region of committing a massacre by bombing a railway station in the city controlled by Ukrainian government forces, killing dozens of civilians. Kyiv said that the station was subjected to an intense missile attack, while the Russian Defense Ministry accused the Ukrainian army, in turn, of launching the attack.

And Washington expanded the scope of its sanctions against Moscow to affect the Russian state-owned diamond mining company “Alrosa”. The European Union also adopted a fifth package of sanctions, which included a ban on imports of coal, wood and chemicals.