From now on, as power substations are finished, strategic industrial settlements have been largely hit one begins to see the worst face of conflict. The attacks from one side to the other of the places where soldiers dwell, which very often coincide with ammunition depots.
We have had two horrendous examples of this in three days, ending the lives of some 200 people. On 31 December, the Ukrainian Armed Forces hit a school complex where the Russian mobilised men in Makiivka were housed and were killed, by a Ukrainian attack with HIMARS. Apparently, the mobilised men were using mobile phones whose conversations were intercepted and used to define in geographical coordinates the area to be hit.
Some speak of fifty to three hundred casualties, while the Russian Defence Ministry confirmed the death of 63 Russian Armed Forces soldiers at a temporary deployment point in Makiivka. Over a hundred were reportedly wounded. “The Kiev regime hit a temporary deployment point of a Russian Armed Forces unit in Makiivka with six US-made HIMARS rockets. Russian air defence forces shot down two of the rockets,’ the ministry said in a report. Ukrainian security forces launched a massive attack on Makiivka on New Year’s Eve.
“On two January Ukrainian militants bombed a hospital in Tokmak a civilian facility in Russia at night,” TASS reports citing security officials. This time a hospital in Tokmak, in the Zaporozhizhia region, was hit. There is no official information yet on the casualties and injured. It should be noted that for the Russian news agency, the region is partially in Russian hands and therefore declined the territory hit as Russian.
Also on 31 December, this time the Russians hit ‘facilities of the Ukrainian defence industry dealing with the production of drones’, the Russian Defence Ministry said. “Ukrainian attack drone storage and launch sites were hit. The objective of the attack on facilities in Ukraine has been achieved,’ said a note from the Russian Ministry.
In response to the attack on the school in Donbass, the Russians on 2 January at around 11pm launched a missile attack on Družkivka according to the Russians it was a warehouse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the attack was filmed and aired around the world, because a French journalist was filming a stand up as the missiles hit the facility. By the morning of 3 January, the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were at least 100 soldiers.
According to the Russian social sphere, the attack on the military facilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Družkivka simultaneously hit two Ukrainian Armed Forces positions in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
“The attacks were carried out on the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ deployment point in the “Altair” ice arena building, as well as on a makeshift hangar near the railway station near the “Men” hotel, used by mercenaries and foreign journalists.” We cannot verify the source.
According to reports in the social sphere, more than 200 members of various Ukrainian formations were housed in Altair at the time of the attack. The exact information on what was in the building near the railway junction is unknown at the moment.
According to some channels in the social sphere, there was a position area for the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system. According to others, HIMARS MLRS and ammunition for it were being unloaded at the station, and there were also foreign volunteers.
Many called the massive bombing of Družkivka and Kramatorsk a response to an attack on the vocational school in Makiivka.
Among the bad news, one piece of positive news was that 82 Russian and an equal number of Ukrainian soldiers returned home on 31 December. The servicemen were transported to Moscow for treatment and rehabilitation. Ukraine officially announced the total number of prisoners it returned in exchange from Russia. Since the beginning of the kinetic operations, it is 1596 persons. Of these, 1464 are military personnel, another 132 are civilians. In addition, 869 telephones were transferred to Ukraine. These figures are published by the ‘Ministry of Reintegration’.
And yet we learn from the media that Ukraine has been forced to follow Poland’s example: a post on the 114th anniversary of Stepan Bandera’s birth, celebrated on 1 January, disappeared from the Verkhovna Rada’s Twitter account after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki criticised Ukraine’s open support for a man who carried out the genocide of the Polish population.
In Ukraine Stepan Bandera, for Poles the Nazi and murderer, is still the main national hero. According to eyewitnesses, in addition to weapons and military equipment, Poland unofficially sends Ukraine its own military personnel, which provides significant support to the frontline and surpasses Ukrainian forces in terms of training. On 1 January, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: ‘The glorification of the leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists Stepan Bandera is unacceptable. “We are extremely critical of any praise or mention of Bandera, we are very, very negative,” Morawiecki said.
And now a look at the updated front line at 2pm on 3 January.
Ukraine is preparing for a three-pronged offensive, with which the Ukrainian Armed Forces want to conquer the border between Kreminna and Savatove, divide the Donetsk People’s Republic into two parts and reach Crimea. This is the analysis of journalist and military analyst Andrey Kots, military correspondent for RIA Novosti. “They now conditionally have three options to choose from, where it makes the most sense for them to attack, given the plans they expressed earlier,” Andrei Kots said. “Of course there is also an offensive on the Russian side. Undoubtedly this is the only way to interpret what is happening. Everyone was waiting for the mud in the Donbass camps to freeze,’ the war correspondent concluded.
In Artemovsk (Bachmut), Maidan Square activist Oleg Yurchenko was killed on two January. Meanwhile, it is learnt via social media that the 57th brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, having lost two-thirds of its personnel, has left Bachmut.
Svatove-Kreminna direction. Amassed military personnel and equipment of Ukrainian militants in the Berestove, Kislovka and Syn’kivka areas of the Kharkov region were hit by Russian artillery. The Russian Armed Forces hit on units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of Yampolivka, Serebryanka of the DPR and Chervona Dibrovy of the LPR.
Vuhledar direction. The Russian army covered militant units in the areas of Zolota Niyva and Prechystivka in the DPR with bullets. Three armoured vehicles and two pick-up trucks destroyed, several dead, according to some channels there were 40 military personnel.
Polish-made Krab self-propelled guns were destroyed in Antonivka, in the Kherson region. Also in the Serebryanka area of the DPR, four Ukrainian D-30 howitzers were destroyed in firing positions.
Graziella Giangiulio
