A hotel damaged by a Russian missile strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, December 31, 2022 (New York Times)

Saturday’s Coverage: Zelenskiy — We Are “Slowly Advancing” in East

Source: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1252 GMT:

One person in the liberated area of the Kherson regin in southern Ukraine has been killed by Russian shelling overnight.

UPDATE 1218 GMT:

A 22-year-old woman critically wounded by Russia’s attacks on Friday has died of her injuries in the city of Khmelnytskyi.

She is the second fatality from the New Year’s Eve assault.

UPDATE 1213 GMT:

The UK announces implementation of the ban on imports of Russian gas….

UPDATE 1207 GMT:

Contrasting images from Kyiv on New Year’s Eve — the Russian attacks for the holiday are met by loud defiance from homes.

UPDATE 0800 GMT:

A senior Ukraine Presidential aide said on Saturday that 140 Ukrainian soldiers have been freed in a prisoner exchange.

Russian sources said 82 Ukrainian soldiers and 82 Russian soldiers were swapped.

UPDATE 0749 GMT:

Ukraine’s head of military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov says Russian forces are now facing depleted stocks of artillery ammunition, as they struggle to seize territory in eastern Ukraine and defend against Ukrainian counter-offensives in the east and south.

Budanov said Russian forces, having fired 60,000 artillery shells per day, are now expending only 19,000 to 20,000. The reduction comes even as Russia moved all remaining artillery ammunition from military warehouses in Belarus.

UK military intelligence assessed on December 24 that Russian forces lack the artillery munitions needed to support large-scale offensive operations. Defensive positions are having to use a significant amount of shells and rockets each day.

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The US-based Institute for the Study of War concludes that the diminishing stocks of munitions will prevent Russian forces from sustaining their seven-month assault on Bakhmut in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. It will also “likely impact their ability to conduct a high pace of operations elsewhere in Ukraine as well”.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russia launched another missile and drone barrage on New Year’s Eve, but failed to damage Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Russian forces attacked on Saturday with dozens of missiles and Iranian-made drones, less than 48 hours after an assault with 69 missiles and 23 UAVs. An elderly man was killed in Kyiv, and at least 28 people were injured, including 20 in the Ukrainian capital.

A hotel and residential homes were damaged in Kyiv. Missiles were also reported in the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine, where six people were wounded; the Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions; and the city of Khmelnytskyi.

However, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said there was no serious damage to the national power system. Several regions cut off electricity to reduce the load, in case the Russians damaged infrastructure, but the emergency outages were lifted by the evening.

Another 45 Iranian-made drones, 32 of them above Kyiv, were downed early Sunday. Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said there were no wounded or casualties, and only a damaged car in the city center.

As the air raid sirens sounded, Kyiv residents shouted, “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!”

Explosions from shelling were also reported in the Kherson and Zhytomyr regions.

Zelenskiy: The Year of the Return of Our People

In his nightly address to the nation, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said:

We don’t know for sure what new 2023 will bring us. I want to wish all of us one thing – victory. And that’s the main thing.

Let this year be the year of return. The return of our people. Soldiers – to their families. Prisoners – to their homes. Immigrants – to their Ukraine. The return of our lands. And the temporarily occupied will become forever free.

Return to normal life. To happy moments without curfew. To earthly joys without air alerts. The return of what has been stolen from us. The childhood of our children, the peaceful old age of our parents.

He concluded, “May the New Year bring it all. We’re ready to fight for it. That’s why each of us is here. I’m here, we’re here, you’re here – everyone’s here. We’re all Ukraine.”

Earlier on Saturday, the President responded to the missile and drone attacks with a message, in Russian, to Russia’s people.

Zelenskiy added, “[Putin] hides behind you and burns your country and your future. Terror will never forgive you. No one in the world will forgive you for this. Ukraine will not forgive.”