By Kontur and AFP | 2024-01-17

DAVOS, Switzerland -- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba January 17 said his country's priority for 2024 was to gain control over its skies, as Russia's full-scale assault enters its third year.

His comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, came just hours after Russian drone and missile attacks overnight wounded 20 people across Ukraine.

At least 17 people were wounded in Russian strikes on residential buildings in Kharkiv, just 30km from the border with Russia in Ukraine's northeast, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said.

"Two women are in serious condition," he added in a post on Telegram.

Synegubov said that according to preliminary information, the city was hit by two S-300 missiles. He added that there were no military targets in the area.

The overnight drone barrage also injured three civilian women and left massive craters in the southern city of Odesa, according to the chief of the region's military administration, Oleg Kiper.

AFP journalists saw residential buildings charred in the wake of the assault.

Rescue workers hauled out vulnerable residents on stretchers from housing blocks that had had their windows blown out, footage from emergency services showed.

'Throw Russia from the skies'

"In 2024, of course the priority is to throw Russia from the skies," Kuleba said in his address 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 deliver advanced fighter jets to support its troops entrenched in the south and east of the country.

French President Emmanuel Macron said this week that France would deliver a new batch of about 40 SCALP long-range cruise missiles as well as hundreds of bombs as Kyiv fights the Russian invasion.

Meanwhile, various NATO countries are training Ukrainian pilots on American-made F-16 fighter jets.

The United States in August gave permission to Denmark and the Netherlands to hand over 61 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine when the country's pilots are trained to operate them. Norway said it too would give up to 10 F-16s to Ukraine.

Denmark said earlier this month it would transfer the first 19 F-16s to Ukraine in the second quarter of this year.

Beating Russia 'takes time'

There has been a steep rise in civilian casualties in Ukraine since December, as Moscow intensifies air attacks, reversing a downward trend seen earlier in 2023, the United Nations has warned.

In the latest overnight attack, Russia launched 20 Iranian-designed drones at targets in southern Ukraine, but Kyiv said its air defense systems had destroyed all but one.

Kuleba called for patience among Ukraine's key Western backers, insisting that with the right support, Ukraine could be victorious.

"We are fighting a powerful enemy, a very big enemy that doesn't sleep," he said. "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 Davos forum.

Kuleba's comments echo remarks by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who on January 16 said that Ukraine "must gain air superiority" to enable "progress on the ground."