Turchynov not ruling out escalation in Mariupol direction in December-January

"We cannot rule out that in December - January, before the inauguration of the new president of the USA, the Russians will, after all, try to significantly aggravate the situation by conducting local offensive operations. At the same time, Mariupol direction remains the most dangerous one," he said. Turchynov stated that over the last one and a half-two months, the most intensive activity of the enemy in terms of the number of shellings and the attempts by the secret subversive groups to penetrate can be observed in Mariupol direction, which can be compared by intensity to the situation in the Avdiivka industrial zone. The NSDC secretary explained that "Mariupol with its port and plants is the strategic aim for them" because "the deformed economic model of the occupied Donbas cannot function without financial subsidies from the Russian Federation". "And for the Russians, who now have serious economic problems, these subsidies become a heavy burden. To compensate for the losses, they need new objects for robbery, some semblance of a working economic model," he said.