Live Updates - Russian engineering troops receive over 20 robotic vehicles

Russian engineering troops receive over 20 robotic vehicles — commander

Uran-6 robotic mine-clearing system
©Gavriil Grigorov/TASS

Russian defense enterprises delivered over 20 robotic vehicles to army engineers under the 2022 defense procurement plan, Chief of Russia’s Engineering Troops Lieutenant-General Yury Stavitsky said in an interview with the Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper published on Friday.

"Under the state defense procurement plan, industrial enterprises delivered over 400 types of advanced hardware, more than 50,000 sets of engineering equipment and ammunition and over 20 robotic (Uran-6 mine-clearance and Uran-14 fire-fighting) vehicles to the engineering troops in 2022," the commander said, adding that the engineering armament system included over 600 items and equipment sets arranged into 75 categories.

Uran-6 multi-purpose mine-clearance robotic vehicles are being employed in Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the general said.

"They are designed to minimize risks among personnel in accomplishing the objectives of clearing anti-personnel minefields and completely clearing the terrain of explosive items in remote mode. An operator can handle the robot using a control panel from a distance of up to 1 km," he explained.

Russian army engineers used Uran-6 robotic vehicles in demining the Syrian cities of Palmyra, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor and in accomplishing missions in Nagorno-Karabakh, Stavitsky said.

"In addition, modern Skarabei and Sfera surveillance robotic vehicles are arriving for the troops," the general added, specifying that the engineering troops were also receiving advanced engineer reconnaissance and field water supply systems, fortification structures, concealment and deception means and equipment for surmounting water obstacles.

Some 68,000 Kherson region residents evacuate to other Russian regions — governor

The evacuation of people from areas in the Kherson region, which are regularly shelled by Ukrainian troops, continues, with around 68,000 people having been evacuated to other Russian regions as of mid-January, the region’s acting governor, Vladimir Saldo, told TASS on Friday.

"It used to be a quite densely populated area, with at least 150,000 people living there. We have evacuated around 60,000. It is difficult to say how many people are still staying there, because residents began to leave before the organized evacuation started and the evacuation is still ongoing. Most probably, not more than half of the original number of residents are still there. But I can tell you the exact number of Kherson region residents who have been evacuated to other Russian regions. There were 68,000 of them as of January 15," he said.

According to Saldo, the majority of the people were evacuated to Crimea.

"Since the very beginning of the special military operation, Crimea has been offering maximal assistance and brotherly support. And not only on humanitarian matters. Hundreds of Crimeans are heroically fighting on the frontline in the Kherson region. I avail myself of the opportunity to once again congratulate our neighbors on Republic of Crimea Day. The 2014 historical referendum in Crimea served as a model for the liberated territories, which became Russia’s new regions in 2022," he said.

On November 9, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu ordered a pullback of troops from the right bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson Region to its left bank, a move suggested by the then Commander of Russia’s Integrated Group of Forces in Ukraine Sergey Surovikin, who stressed that the Russian military had successfully repulsed all Ukrainian attacks.

The decision to move the forces back, in his words, was also due to the risk of their isolation, should territories downstream from the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant be flooded. Surovikin said that all civilians who wished to leave - more than 115,000 people - had already been evacuated from the right bank.

Ukraine occasionally tries to land troops on Kinburn Spit — Kherson authorities

The Ukrainian Armed Forces occasionally try to land troops on the Kinburn Spit in the Nikolayev Region, the Kherson Region’s Acting Governor Vladimir Saldo told TASS on Friday.

"From time to time, the enemy has tried to land small forces on the Kinburn Spit, deploying them from the Ochakov area on speedboats. Our troops repelled all these attempts and landing forces were either fully eliminated or retreated after losing many of their troops and watercraft," he pointed out.

Saldo said earlier that the Kinburn Spit, located on the left bank of the Dnieper River, was fully controlled by the Russian Armed Forces. A Russian security source, in turn, explained that the liberation of the area had opened the water way to the city of Ochakov.

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