"Conveyor line of death" in Bakhmut: Russia suffers heavy losses - Putin's army is running out of missiles
Created: 01/01/2023 17:47
By: Markus Hofstetter
The British Ministry of Defense expects new Russian attack waves in the coming days.
The goal is to undermine the morale of Ukrainians.
The news ticker.
Prigoshin
reports
"a great many" prisoners
: "Putin's cook" stages Wagner as a human troupe
Rocket attack
just before
New Year
: dead and injured after explosions on Saturday
President Selenskyj
: Ukraine's air defenses are to be expanded to become the strongest in Europe
This
news ticker on military developments
in the
Ukraine war
is constantly updated.
Update from January 1, 5:42 p.m .:
In the battle for the eastern Ukrainian frontline town of Bakhmut, Russian troops have suffered heavy losses, according to Ukrainian accounts.
On Saturday alone, around 170 Russian soldiers were killed, as the spokesman for the Ukrainian Army Group East, Serhiy Cherevatyj, announced on Sunday.
Another 200 Russians were wounded trying to attack the city.
Cherevatyj spoke of an "assembly line of death" for the attackers.
The information on the number of victims could not initially be independently verified.
War in Ukraine: Wagner fighters escape from training center
Update from January 1, 5:04 p.m .:
Six armed men from the Wagner military group are said to have escaped from a Wagner training center in the Luhansk region on Friday (December 30).
This was reported by the US think tank “Institute for the Study of War” (ISW) on Saturday evening.
Wagner boss and financier Yevgeny Prigozhin tried to downplay the story.
He claimed that the Russian National Guard, police and Wagner security forces had extensive experience in capturing various types of armed individuals.
According to the ISW, the escaped Wagner fighters were recruited prisoners.
The Russian medium
tsargard.tv
warned residents of the Rostov region to be careful.
You should be alert and watch out for persons in military camouflage uniforms.
Update from January 1, 3:30 p.m.:
In the Ukraine war, Moscow claims that Ukraine wanted to carry out “terrorist attacks” against Russia.
A statement by the Russian Defense Ministry said the Russian military had used precision strikes to destroy Ukrainian troops' facilities, "repelling the terrorist attacks."
In addition to warehouses, this also includes production facilities and airfields for drones, the ministry wrote in the report, according to the state agency Ria Nowosti.
Ukraine war: Putin's army apparently in great need of missiles
Update from January 1, 12:10 p.m .:
According to the Ukrainian secret service, Russia is running out of precision missiles.
This is the result of Western sanctions, said Ukrainian secret service spokesman Wadjim Skibitskyj, according to the Ukrinform news agency.
The Russian deficit is about the Iskandar ballistic missiles and the Kalibr cruise missiles.
In addition, the Russian military would also run out of Kh-101 and Kh-555 cruise missiles.
A photo provided by the Russian Defense Ministry shows a missile being launched from the Black Sea.
© imago
"Russia is only capable of a maximum of 2-3 powerful blows," emphasized Skibitskyj, referring to the most recent waves of attacks.
However, Russia keeps producing new missiles for their troops.
Now debris from rockets produced in the fourth quarter of 2022 has also been found.
Skibitskyj also pointed out that Russia is now changing tactics in the war: According to this, the Russian army is combining the use of Iranian drones, old missiles, high-precision missiles and modified missiles from the S-300 air defense system.
According to the Ukrainian secret service spokesman, the Russian army also has problems with anti-aircraft missiles.
There is also a deficit here.
"They brought a large amount from Belarus and are very actively cooperating with other countries to find missile stocks," Skibitskyj said.
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Ukraine war: Kiev's military apparently shoots down 45 Iranian drones
Update from January 1, 10:05 a.m .:
Russia attacked Ukraine on New Year’s night with a total of 45 drones, according to the air defense in Kiev.
All Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze combat drones were destroyed by the Ukrainian air defenses, the armed forces said on New Year's Day in Kyiv.
"It was not possible to spoil the holiday for the Ukrainians," the statement said.
“The soldiers of the Ukrainian Air Force congratulate their indomitable nation on the New Year 2023!
Together to victory!” The message continued to emphasize.
According to military sources in Kyiv, Russia also fired 20 rockets at Ukraine on New Year's Eve, most of which were destroyed.
The capital Kyiv and other cities in the country were affected.
Prigozhin reports "a great many" prisoners - "Putin's cook" stages Wagner as a human troupe
Update from January 1, 9:10 a.m .:
In an interview with the Russian state agency Ria Novosti, the leader of the Kremlin-affiliated Russian mercenary group "Wagner" stated that his fighters had captured a large number of Ukrainian soldiers during the war.
"There are a lot of prisoners," Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin told the agency.
There are "wounded" but also "anxious prisoners".
Some of the Ukrainian prisoners were forced to surrender "to save the lives of their comrades".
In addition, Prigozhin claimed that the Wagner mercenaries had no hostile attitude towards the prisoners and treated them well.
After all, there is a difference between fighting on the battlefield with weapons and capturing Ukrainian soldiers.
However, the brutal execution of an ex-Wagner fighter and Prigozhin's jubilation raise serious doubts about this portrayal of the Wagner boss.
Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
(Archive image) © Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool EPA via AP/dpa
Ukraine war: Russia attacks Ukraine also on New Year's Eve
Update from December 31, 10:41 p.m .:
Shortly before the turn of the year, the arrival of so-called kamikaze drones from Russia was reported in Ukraine.
Air alerts were raised for the cities of Odessa and Mykolaiv in the south and Dnipro in the center of the country, the Unian
agency reported
on Saturday evening.
Mykolayiv military administrator Vitali Kim reported two formations of drones sighted in his area.
The air defense opened fire on the Iranian-made Shahed drones.
Update from December 31, 5:50 p.m .:
Ukrainian artillery attacked Russian positions in eastern Ukraine on Saturday.
The village of Pervomaiskoye in the Luhansk region of Donbass has been the target of at least two rounds of fire from the American Himars multiple rocket launcher, the Russian agency TASS reported
,
citing local authorities.
No information was given about possible casualties or damage.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian media reported explosions near Dzhankoy Airport in Russian-occupied Crimea.
They cited reports from social networks that the denotations in Crimea could be due to the use of anti-aircraft missiles.
Dead and injured after rocket attacks on Ukraine just before the New Year
Update from December 31, 4:17 p.m .:
According to the authorities, there were several injuries and deaths in the renewed rocket attacks shortly before the New Year.
As Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced on Saturday, an elderly man died in the capital and 16 people were injured.
One of the injured is a journalist from Japan.
One person killed in the attacks was also reported from the Zaporizhia region.
Two people were said to have been injured in the attacks.
In addition, important buildings in Kyiv were damaged by the explosions, including the Palace of Culture “Palace Ukraine”.
This was announced by the Vice President of the Office of the President, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, via the Telegram news service and published a photo.
“Usually on these days parents and children are there on the eve of the new year.
Today, miraculously, there were no children.
Glass flew from Russian rockets,” Tymoshenko said.
In addition to the Palace of Culture, a hotel in Kyiv, which is also used by journalists, was also partially damaged.
The rockets on Saturday were "an attack by murderers and terrorists," Tymoshenko said.
It makes the Russians "joy at the holiday table" to see a "destroyed hotel in the heart of Kiev".
Ukraine War: Heavy attacks on Kyiv also on New Year's Eve
December 31 update, 2:23 p.m
.: Shortly before the New Year celebrations, Russia again attacked Ukraine with dozens of cruise missiles and missiles.
Around half a dozen explosions – presumably triggered by anti-aircraft defense – could be heard in Kyiv on Saturday, as a reporter from the German Press Agency reported from the center of the capital.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko spoke of destruction.
Emergency services and medical staff are on their way.
Explosions were also reported from the western Ukrainian regions of Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr and from the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv.
According to the deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the western Ukrainian region of Khmelnytskyi was attacked with drones.
There were two injuries there.
As a precaution, power has been shut off in several areas to reduce damage from power supply hits.
Police officers stand in front of a hotel in Kyiv that was damaged by shelling.
(Photo from December 31, 2022) © Efrem Lukatsky/dpa/picture alliance
President Zelenskyj: Ukraine's air defenses are to be expanded to become the strongest in Europe
First report from December 31: Kiev
- The British Ministry of Defense suspects a long-term strategy behind the regular attacks on the Ukrainian infrastructure.
"Since October, Russia has maintained the general pattern of conducting an intensive wave of attacks every seven to 10 days," the ministry's Twitter page said.
Russia almost certainly wants to use it to overwhelm Ukraine's air defenses.
But there is a realistic possibility that Russia will break this pattern and strike again in the coming days to undermine Ukrainian people's morale over the New Year holiday.
Meanwhile, Ukraine wants to massively expand its air defenses in response to repeated Russian missile attacks on its cities.
"In the new year, Ukraine's air defense will be even stronger, even more effective," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily video address on Friday evening.
Ukraine's air defense could become the strongest in Europe, he added, referring to the announced Patriot battery from the United States.
"This will be a security guarantee not only for our country but for the entire continent."
Patriot systems from the USA, here a device stationed in Poland, are intended to help Ukraine fend off Russian attacks.
(Archive photo) © Christophe Gateau
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian armed forces' air defenses have achieved relatively high numbers of kills in large-scale Russian attacks with cruise missiles, rockets and so-called kamikaze drones.
Given the mass of incoming projectiles, not all missiles could be repelled.
The Ukrainian army, which already uses a number of foreign anti-aircraft systems, is awaiting deployment of the Patriot battery promised by the US government.
Ukrainian soldiers are currently being trained on the system.
Escape from military service: 15 Ukrainians die illegally crossing the border
According to the military, since the beginning of the Russian invasion and the declaration of a state of war in Ukraine, several thousand young Ukrainians have tried to evade military service.
As the Ukrainian border troops announced on Friday, almost 12,000 men were caught trying to illegally cross the country's border to the west.
15 men died while crossing the border.
Pictures of the Ukraine war: great horror and small moments of happiness
View photo gallery
In Russia, too, thousands of young men tried to evade military service.
Immediately after the partial mobilization in September, thousands fled abroad, and veritable small Russian colonies were established in some former Soviet republics.
