A school in Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv destroyed by a Russian attack, January 2, 2024

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Tuesday’s Coverage: Russia’s Largest Drone Attack of Invasion

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1046 GMT:

The European Union has sanctioned the Russian State firm Alrosa, the world’s largest diamond mining company, and its chief executive officer Pavel Marinychev.

Last month, the EU agree to ban the import of diamonds from Russia. Alrosa produces 90% of Russia’s output.

Russian diamond exports were about $4 billion in 2022.

UPDATE 0929 GMT:

Russia’s Defense Ministry and local officials claim Ukraine launched 12 missiles and several drones on Wednesday morning on the Belgorod region in the southwest.

The officials gave no word on civilian or military targets. No casualties are reported so far.

On Saturday, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said 25 people, including five children, were killed by Ukrainian attacks.

Ukraininan officials said the deaths were from flawed Russian air defenses downing munitions over the center of Belgorod city, a claim unwittingly supported by a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry.

One person was killed and seven more wounded in the region on Tuesday, Russian authorities said.

Belgorod Mayor Valentin Demidov has warned local residents to avoid publishing photos and videos of bombardments.

Demidov cited “a matter of our own safety”; however, the photos and videos could offer verification of whether damage is from Ukrainian strikes or Russian air defenses.

UPDATE 0821 GMT:

Russian authorities reportedly rounded up thousands of migrants on New Year’s Eve to send them to the frontline in Ukraine.

The detentions included more than 3,000 people in Russia’s second city St. Petersburg.

Officials said the round-up was “to prevent crime”: “More than 600 of the migrants have been in Russia with various violations of migration legislation.”

However, an “informed source” in the Interior Affairs Ministry said the operation has been planned since August to replenish Russian troops in Ukraine — sometimes suffering more than 1,000 casualties per day — with “volunteers”.

After a meeting of representatives of the State security service FSB and the Defense Ministry, “an order came to St. Petersburg to recruit seven thousand volunteers”.

Police did not raid apartments, fearing this would scare away a large number of migrants who return to their homeland or go into hiding.

Instead, Operation “Azamat” planned the seizure of migrants in crowded places on New Year’s Eve.

UPDATE 0743 GMT:

The toll from Russia’s largest missile assault of the invasion on December 29 has risen to at least 46 killed.

A wounded civilian passed away in Kyiv on Tuesday, becoming the capital’s 30th fatality.

More than 160 people were injured in the attack by 117 missiles and 36 drones.

The latest wave of Russia’s escalating missile and drone strikes killed at least five civilians in or near Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and its second city Kharkiv on Tuesday.

Another 115 people were wounded.

A day after Russia’s most intense drone strikes of the 22-month invasion — and four days after the most intense missile assault — the invaders again hit several residential buildings, cars and other civilian infrastructure.

In Kyiv, two civilians, including an elderly woman, were slain and at least 49 wounded. Two others were killed in the Kyiv region.

In Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine, another woman was killed and 41 people injured.

The head of Ukraine’s military, Gen. Valerii Zalushnyi, said air defenses downed 72 of 83 Russian missiles: all 10 Kinzhals and three Kalibrs and 59 of another 70 cruise missiles.

Zalushnyi spoke specifically of the downing of the hypersonic Kinzhals, including by US-made Patriot air defense systems: “This is a record. If the missiles hit their targets, the consequences would be catastrophic.”

One of the other missiles hit a residential high-rise in Kyiv, causing almost all of the capital’s casualties and forcing an evacuation.

Kira Rudik, a member of parliament, posted:

In the past week, Russia’s attacks have returned to and exceeded the intensity of Vladimir Putin’s “energy war” which tried but failed to break Ukrainian resistance and infrastructure last winter.

The Russian strikes continued on Tuesday night, including the destruction of a school in Kharkiv.

Moscow is hoping to exhaust the Ukrainian stock of anti-air missiles and then attack the batteries, amid blocks on further aid to Kyiv by Republicans in the US Congress and by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán within the European Union.

Zelenskiy: “If We Fail, Russian Terror Will Further Spread”

In his nightly address to the nation, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy noted that the Russians have fired about 300 missiles and more than 200 Iran-made Shahed drones since December 29: “Prior to Ukraine, no country in the world had ever successfully repulsed such combined attacks with the use of drones and missiles, including air-launched ballistic missiles.”

Thanking every “warrior” and “everyone throughout the world” assisting Ukraine, he continued with an appeal to maintain the support for Ukrainian resistance:

Each additional air defense system and missile saves more lives. It is here, in Ukraine, and with our air defense, that we must demonstrate that democracies are capable of protecting lives from all types of terror.

If we fail to achieve this task in Ukraine now, Russian terror will further spread throughout Europe and beyond. The Russian leadership’s sense of impunity, forged over decades of unrestricted authority, has already resulted in a lot of suffering and loss of life.

Gen. Zalushnyi added, “There is no reason to believe that the enemy will stop here. Therefore, we need more systems and munitions for them.”

Earlier in the evening, Zelenskiy conferred with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak by phone. He thanked the UK for “its substantial and comprehensive aid in bolstering Ukraine’s air defense, particularly with radars, advanced anti-drone systems, and missiles”.