Ukraine begins the new year with a major attack on Russian forces | News of the war between Russia and Ukraine

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Ukraine kicked off the new year with a major attack that killed several Russian soldiers in their barracks, and with a defensive victory — its air force said it had managed to shoot down all Iranian drones that Russia had launched against Ukrainian infrastructure since the start of the year.

Ukraine fired six artillery missiles at a barracks in Makevka, in the Donetsk region, using the US-supplied HIMARS system two minutes into New Year’s Day.

And the Russian Ministry of Defense admitted that four of the missiles penetrated the air defenses and hit their target.

Russia admitted 63 deaths two days after the strike, and later raised that number to 89.

But video of the wreckage showed the makeshift barracks, a former vocational school, almost completely flattened, suggesting casualties could be much higher and it might take time to extract the bodies.

Ukraine said the soldiers were housed next to a large munitions depot that exploded, killing an estimated 400 Russian servicemen and wounding 300.

The strike caused an uproar among military correspondents and Russian lawmakers, who called for the resignation of Denis Pushlin, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, though he is not technically part of the Russian military hierarchy.

Law enforcement in Donetsk tried to deflect blame by suggesting that the soldiers themselves were responsible for using their mobile phones, which enabled Ukrainian electronic surveillance to track them down.

Initially, HIMARS was caused by the active use of mobile phones before [newly] Military personnel arrived. “The enemy detected, using the ECHELON reconnaissance complex, the activity of cellular communications and the location of subscribers,” a source told the Russian news agency TASS.

The Russian Ministry of Defense adopted this interpretation.

Ukraine said it had some success on the ground as well.

Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov said that during the last week of 2022, Ukrainian ground forces advanced 2.5 kilometers towards the occupied town of Krymina in Luhansk region and continue to make progress.

Military analysts reasoned that if Ukraine recaptured Kremina and Svatov, both just a few kilometers from the contact line in Luhansk, they could roll over 40 kilometers (25 miles) of territory before reaching Russia’s next natural defensive position in a counterattack similar to the one that recaptured so much. From the Kharkiv region last September.

“In the event of a breakthrough … of the defensive lines of the Russian occupation forces on the Svatove-Kreminna line, thereby transferring hostilities near the city of Luhansk, a significant part of the soldiers of units of the 2nd Army Corps, especially among those mobilized for territory Temporary occupied, planning to surrender.

Luhansk Governor Serhiy Hayday said that Ukraine could take over Cremina at the beginning of 2023.

The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, told the BBC that the two sides were in a real stalemate at the moment, and that the hardware would make the difference.

“The situation is stuck,” Budanov said. We cannot defeat them in all directions comprehensively. And they can’t… We’re very much looking forward to new weapons supplies and the arrival of more advanced weapons.”

Russia continues its air campaign

Russia was not idly by on the last day of 2022, bombarding Ukraine with drone and missile fire, albeit at a slightly reduced intensity.

Ukraine said it had shot down all 13 of the drones launched by Russia, and 12 of the 20 cruise missiles. Eight people were wounded when a missile hit a residential building. More drones followed overnight, and on January 1 Ukraine announced that it had shot down all Shahed-136 drones sent by Russia on New Year’s Eve.

Ukraine reported that it shot down another 39 drones launched on New Year’s Day.

By January 2, Ukraine said it had maintained a 100 percent kill rate against enemy drones, a rate “never achieved before” according to Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat.

“Only two days have passed since the beginning of the year and the number of Iranian drones shot down over Ukraine has already exceeded 80,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address on January 2.

“We have information that Russia is planning a permanent attack by Shahed drones,” he said. “Her bet may be on exhaustion. About the exhaustion of our people, our air defense, our energy. But we must and we will make sure that this terrorist goal, like all others, fails.”

Ukraine’s air defenses have been boosted in recent weeks by at least two NASAMS systems and an IRIS-T air defense system. But even without that, the Ukrainian Air Force has begun to develop groundbreaking countermeasures that have been effective against drones and cruise missiles, the latter of which are hard to stop.

On December 29, for example, Ukrainian officials reported that their forces had shot down 54 of the 69 cruise missiles launched by Russian forces, and 11 of the 23 drones.

Ukraine has also made it a priority to remind Russia that it is not immune to long-range airstrikes.

On December 29, Ukraine attacked the Engels Air Base in Russian territory with a drone, three days after causing three deaths with a similar attack. Engels includes some of Russia’s long-range strategic bomber fleet. Ukraine killed three more soldiers at the Engels and Diaghilev bases on Dec. 5.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Moscow was “struggling to counter air threats deep in Russia”, with air defense systems such as the Pantsir needed to protect forward field headquarters in or near Ukraine.

Who has the greatest staying power in arms and troops?

There has been an ongoing discussion among military observers about Russia’s ability to generate both firepower and manpower. Ukraine has destroyed both with precision strikes, like the one on Makiivka, since July thanks to shipments of HIMARS missile systems.

The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kirillo Budanov, said that Russian forces are conserving artillery shells, firing between 19,000 and 20,000 a day, which is a lower rate compared to their previous record.

The UK Ministry of Defense agreed that “munitions shortages are likely to remain the main limiting factor” for Russia, which is “unlikely to increase its stock of artillery ammunition sufficiently to enable large-scale offensive operations”, given that “even the mere continuation of operations Defensive throughout. A long front line requires a large daily expenditure of shells and missiles.

Russia buys artillery shells from Belarus and North Korea to supplement heavy losses at ammunition dumps near the front.

But a Ukrainian official warned against complacency.

No one should underestimate the importance of the resources of the Russian Federation as a state in general. “They may not have been able to carry out hostilities with the same intensity as before, but, unfortunately, they still have sufficient reserves, and in no way can they relax,” Deputy Defense Minister Hana Maliar said in a televised interview.

Maintaining the workforce has been a challenge for both sides. Ukraine imposed conscription from the early days of the war, but Russia delayed mobilization, an unpopular measure, until September and October, when it conscripted 300,000 men for the war.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its regular fall recruitment recruited 120,000 men in November. The announcement emphasized that the recruits were not heading to Ukraine, and would receive five months of training on “modern military weapons and equipment”.

“Citizens who were called up for military service do not participate in the special military operation in Ukraine, and conscripted soldiers who have served the specified conditions for military service are demobilized in a timely manner and sent to their places of residence,” the ministry said.

Delays in mobilizing forces and assurances that regular recruits will not be sent to Ukraine may be signs of growing war anxiety in Russia.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksey Reznikov questioned Russia’s reassurances, saying that Russia needed manpower and was about to declare martial law, close its borders to men of military age, and conduct a new mobilization after a week or so in the new war. general.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview that Moscow would not accept the peace plan proposed by Zelensky in early November, in Russia’s first official refutation of its specific terms.

The Kremlin rejects the conditions for the withdrawal of Russian forces to the 1991 borders, for Russia to pay compensation to Ukraine, and for it to participate in an international criminal court in The Hague.

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