January 2, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 2.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia is planning a prolonged campaign of attacks with Iranian-made Shahed drones to exhaust Ukraine.

“We have information that Russia is planning a prolonged attack with Shaheds. Its bet may be on exhaustion,” Zelensky said in his nightly address Monday. “On exhaustion of our people, our air defense, our energy sector.”?

Zelensky said Ukraine’s main task is to ensure Russia’s drone plans fail.

He said?more than 80 have been?shot down over Ukraine since the?start?of 2023.?

Forty percent of territories occupied after Feb. 24 — when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine — were liberated over the past year, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, said Monday.

?“The Armed Forces liberated 40 percent of the territories occupied during the full-scale invasion and 28 percent of all territories occupied by Russia since 2014,” he reported in a round-up post of 2022 on the Telegram app.

The current frontline is 1,500 km long, the general said.

According to Zaluzhny, Ukrainian Armed Forces have undergone military training in the territory of 17 European countries.

“Thanks to international partners it was possible to train more than 20,000 soldiers,” he said. “In 2022, more than 600,000 people were evacuated from the areas of hostilities and more than 2 million tonnes of humanitarian goods were brought in.”

Anatolii Kaharlytskyi, 73, stands near his house, heavily damaged after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday, January 2.

The Ukrainian military said Monday that the number of Russian troops killed in a missile strike in Makiivka, in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, is “being clarified.” Earlier, the Ukrainian military claimed that hundreds of Russian soldiers were killed, without directly acknowledging a role.

The Russian Ministry of Defense did acknowledge the attack and claimed that “63 Russian servicemen” died.

Here are some other key developments:

The governor of Belgorod, a Russian region bordering Ukraine, reported shelling on Monday.

Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram that “the village of Murom in the Shebekinsky urban district came under fire from the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”?

He?said there were no casualties, but the shelling caused damage to two private houses and a car.

Gladkov also reported a local cemetery was hit by shelling.??

According to Gladkov, the village of Vyazovoye in the Belgorod region came under fire on Monday as well.?

“There were no casualties,” he said. “Windows of one private house were blown out, the facade and the fence were affected.”??

“A power transmission line was also damaged,” Gladkov added. “Emergency services are on site and are dealing with the aftermath.”?

Some background: Belgorod, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Ukrainian border, has been struck previously.?In December, the governor said one person was dead and eight people were injured in the region.

Emergency workers in the rubble of the building destroyed by shelling in Makiivka, in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, on Jan. 1.

The Ukrainian military said the number of Russian servicemen killed in Makiivka, in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, is “being clarified.”

In its latest operational update Monday, the military’s General Staff reported that “up to 10 units of enemy military equipment of various types were destroyed and damaged in the area.”

Earlier, the Ukrainian military claimed that around 400 Russian soldiers were killed and a further 300 were wounded, without directly acknowledging a role. CNN cannot independently confirm those numbers or the weapons used in the strike.?

The Russian Ministry of Defense on Monday acknowledged the attack and claimed that “63 Russian servicemen” died.

According to both Ukrainian and pro-Russian accounts, the strike took place just after midnight on Sunday, New Year’s Day, on a vocational school housing Russian conscripts in Makiivka, in the Donetsk region.

Meanwhile, Ukraine shot down 27 Russian-launched Shahed-136 drones targeting civilian infrastructure on Monday, the General Staff said.

“The enemy, losing a lot of manpower, continues to focus on conducting offensive actions in the Bakhmut direction and is trying to improve the tactical situation in the Kupyansk and Avdiivka direction,” the update noted.

“In the Kherson direction, the enemy continues shelling the settlements along the right bank of the Dnipro River. In particular, civilian infrastructure of Kherson, Antonivka and Beryslav suffered from artillery shelling. There are wounded among the civilian population,” the General Staff said.?

A Ukrainian service member uses a radio in a shelter near their position at a frontline in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on January 1.?

Russia continues to focus its main efforts on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, firing 224 times in this direction over the past 24 hours, according to the spokesperson for the Eastern Group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Serhii Cherevatyi.

“There were 34 fights and one air strike. The enemy lost 213 people killed and 87 wounded there,” Cherevatyi said of the situation in Bakhmut on Ukrainian television on Monday.

Cherevatyi said Russia is currently using 20 thousand shells a day on smaller sections of the front “for example, in Bakhmut or Avdiivka, partially in the Lyman and Kupyansk directions”.

“Before, they could afford to shell our military all over the front - 60 thousand shells per day,” he said.

Cherevatyi reasoned that Russian forces are focusing on specific areas because “they did not count on such a long war, and therefore on such a dynamics of ammunition consumption, which, in fact, is equal to the World War II. Even their seemingly endless ammunition is beginning to run out.”?

Ukrainian film editor Viktor Onysko has been killed on the front line, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said Monday, without providing further details.

Onysko worked on Ukrainian films including “The Stronghold,” “The Rising Hawk” and “Viddana.” The Dovzhenko Centre, Ukraine’s state film archive, called it “an incredible loss for the film community and Ukraine.”?

His wife Olga Birzul said in a Facebook post, “My heart will forever remain in the terrible year 2022. Because you stayed there. My hero. My love. My everything. I don’t know how to live and breathe without you. I don’t know if I can ever dream again.”

Birzul added the “only thing I have from you is a 9-year-old girl with your gray eyes.”

Ukrainian soldiers drive a captured Russian tank in the Kupiansk region of Kharkiv Oblast,?Ukraine, on October 15.

The damage to Ukrainian ecology caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine is now estimated at $35.3 billion, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, said on Monday.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources said in a?Facebook post?Monday: “The conduct of hostilities deepens the climate crisis, causing significant emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”

According to the latest calculations of the Ministry of Environment, the war has directly led to emissions of 33 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. The ministry broke that figure down, listing the estimated emissions from combat, the movement of internally displaced people and fires in the country.?

Some background: In May last year, CNN reported how Ukraine’s fertile soil was becoming contaminated with heavy metals and other potentially poisonous substances leaking from missiles, military equipment and spent ammunition.

Spilled fuel is polluting ground waters and ecosystems are being hammered by tanks and other heavy technology. All of this is damage that will be felt for decades after the war ends.

In December, Kyiv-based non-profit the Center for Environmental Initiatives Ecoaction published a report that said, “the population’s access to water in many regions of the country has significantly deteriorated”.?

“As a result of Russia’s armed military aggression against Ukraine, water treatment and purification infrastructure facilities are destroyed, and environmental components are polluted, in particular sources of drinking water and water bodies,” it added.

A Russian defence ministry spokesperson talks about the?Makiivka shelling in Moscow, Russia, on January 2.

An apparent Ukrainian strike in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine appears to have killed a large number of Russian troops housed next to an ammunition cache, according to the Ukrainian military, pro-Russian military bloggers?and former officials.

According to?both Ukrainian and?pro-Russian accounts, the strike took?place just after midnight on Sunday, New Year’s Day,?on a vocational school housing Russian conscripts in Makiivka, in the Donetsk region.

The attack has led to vocal?criticism?of the Russian military from pro-Russian military bloggers,?who claimed?that the troops?lacked protection and?were reportedly being quartered next to a large cache of ammunition, which is said to have exploded when Ukrainian HIMARS rockets hit the?school.

The Ukrainian military claimed that around 400 Russian soldiers were killed and 300 were wounded, without directly acknowledging a role. CNN cannot independently confirm those numbers?or the weapons used in the strike.?Some pro-Russian military bloggers have also estimated that the number of dead and wounded could run in the hundreds.

The Russian Ministry of Defense on Monday acknowledged the attack and claimed that “63 Russian servicemen” died.?

Video reportedly from the scene of the attack is circulating widely on Telegram,?including on an official Ukrainian military channel. It shows a pile of smoking rubble, in which almost no part of the building appears to be standing.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said that the Ukrainian attack?used HIMARS rockets.?

Daniil Bezsonov, a?former?official in the Russia-backed Donetsk administration,?said on Telegram?that “apparently, the high command is still unaware of the capabilities of this weapon.”

A Russian propagandist who blogs about the war effort on Telegram, Igor Girkin,?claimed that?the building was almost completely destroyed by the secondary detonation of ammunition stores.?

Girkin has long?decried Russian generals whom he claims direct the war effort far from the frontline. Girkin was previously minister of defense of the self-proclaimed, Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, and was found guilty by a Dutch court of mass murder for his involvement?in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014.?

Sergey Markov, another pro-Russian military blogger,?said there was?“a great deal of sloppiness” on the part of the Russian command.

Boris Rozhin, who also blogs about the war effort under the nickname Colonelcassad,?said that?“incompetence and an inability to grasp the experience of war continue to be a serious problem.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Ukraine was waiting for the first tranche of a $19 billion support package from the European Union in January, following a call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.?

He added in a?tweet?that Ukraine was also awaiting the first “batch of LED-lamps school buses, generators and modular houses.”?

Von der Leyen?tweeted?that she had conveyed her “wholehearted support and best wishes for 2023 to the Ukrainian people,” to Zelensky on their first call of the new year.

“The EU stands by you, for as long as it takes. We support your heroic struggle. A fight for freedom and against brutal aggression,” she said.

Five people have been injured by a Russian attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Beryslav, and another person was injured in Kyiv Monday amid strikes which have left the Ukrainian capital struggling to maintain electricity supply.

Here are the latest headlines:

Russian air defenses downed?a Ukrainian drone approaching the southwestern Russian city of Voronezh on Sunday night, Russian state news agency TASS reported Monday, quoting local authorities.?

There were no reports of casualties or damage, according to TASS, quoting?the?regional government.?

Voronezh is located in southwestern Russia.

CNN has not been able to independently verify the TASS reporting.

Ukrainian servicemen use searchlights as they search for drones in Kyiv,?Ukraine, on?January 1.

One man was injured early Monday as a result of a Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, according to the State Emergency Service (SES) of Ukraine.

The 19-year-old man was hospitalized after suffering a lacerated foot while in an eighth-floor apartment in Kyiv’s Desnianskyi district.

“Firefighters of the nearest fire and rescue units immediately arrived at the scene,” the SES said on its official Telegram channel.

“Upon arrival, the firefighters found out that as a result of the rocket fragments falling on the roadway, balconies and windows on 3, 4, 6 floors of a 9-story residential building were damaged.”

The Ukrainian military claimed to have shot down 39 Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones overnight into Monday, but said that debris had nonetheless damaged infrastructure facilities and residential buildings.

Five people have been injured by alleged Russian tank fire on a market in the southern Ukrainian town of Beryslav, according to the regional governor.

“This morning Russians attacked the center of Beryslav – they shelled the city market,” said Yaroslav Yanushevych, governor of Kherson region, where Beryslav is located, on his official Telegram channel.

“Presumably, the fire was conducted from a tank from the temporarily occupied Kakhovka,” he added. Kakhovka is on the opposite side of the Dnipro River.

Of the five people injured, three are in critical condition, Beryslav said.

On Sunday, one person was killed and four injured by Russian attacks across the Ukrainian-controlled portions of the Kherson region, according to Beryslav.

Russian forces attacked the region 71 times on Sunday, he said, using artillery, multiple-launch rocket launchers (MLRS), mortars and tanks.

Authorities in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv are urging residents to reduce their electricity consumption after a third day of Russian attacks damaged infrastructure facilities.

On Monday, energy company DTEK said that it had been forced to implement emergency power cuts, and Oleksii Kuleba, head of Kyiv regional military administration, called on residents of the capital to keep an eye on their energy use.

“We are currently observing an increase in electricity consumption and excessive load on the grid,” Kuleba said on Telegram. “Therefore, it is important not to forget about reasonable consumption of electricity?– to use energy-intensive devices in turn and to use electricity sparingly.”

The Ukrainian military claimed to have shot down 39 Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones overnight into Monday, but said that debris had nonetheless damaged infrastructure facilities.

Eleven private houses were also damaged by falling debris, according to Kuleba.

However the Prosecutor’s General Office of Ukraine said that there do not appear to have been any casualties.

“Prosecutors and investigators are working at the scene to document violations of international humanitarian law by the aggressor country,” the office said in a statement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers his first address of the year on January 1.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used his first address of the year to underline the “sense of unity” in the country, and contrast it with the “fear” he said is felt in Russia.

“Our sense of unity, authenticity, life itself – all this contrasts dramatically with the fear that prevails in Russia,” said Zelensky in an address published Sunday evening local time.

Zelensky congratulated Ukrainian forces for shooting down 45 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia on the first night of the year

“Russian terrorists were pathetic, and they entered this year staying the same. Our defenders were awesome, and on January 1 they showed themselves very well,” he said.

Zelensky went on to thank “everyone who is fighting the enemy at the frontline every day and every night,” as well as energy and utility workers restoring infrastructure damaged by Russian strikes.

“And it is very important how all Ukrainians recharged their inner energy this New Year’s Eve,” said Zelensky.

“And how we thanked our warriors. How we thanked our loved ones. How millions of times all over Ukraine, all over the free world, our wish – the wish of victory – has sounded and still sounds.”

A 46-year-old man who was injured by a Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital on Saturday has died in hospital, according to city mayor Vitaly Klitschko.

“One of the injured as a result of the Russian attack on the capital on December 31 died this morning,” Klitschko said on his official Telegram channel. “The 46-year-old man was in intensive care in serious condition.”

Another person died and 20 others were injured in Saturday’s explosions, Klitschko?said.

Out of the injured, 14 were hospitalized, while six others were provided with medical assistance on the spot, he said.

Several school buildings in the capital suffered severe damage from the explosions, the mayor added.

A glow from explosion is seen over the city's skyline during a Russian drones strike in?Kyiv on January 1.

Ukraine’s capital Kyiv was experiencing power outages Monday, after overnight strikes damaged energy infrastructure facilities in the city, its mayor said.

Vitaly Klitschko said some heat supply facilities were disconnected from the power supply, but the city’s water supply remains normal.

Russian strikes in recent weeks targeting critical infrastructure across Ukraine have left much of the country without access to heat and power, amid a harsh winter season. Crews worked for days ahead of New Year’s Eve to repair systems and fortify the grid, but?Ukrainian officials said Saturday?that Moscow’s attacks aim to plunge cities into darkness on the holiday.

Klitschko previously said 30% of the capital was left without power on New Year’s Eve due to emergency shutdowns.

Meanwhile, locals in Kyiv expressed a resolve to celebrate the new year, telling CNN they hope that 2023 could bring peace, as Russia’s invasion grinds on.

Ukrainian forces on Sunday struck a vocational school in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where mobilized military personnel were stationed, a senior Russian-backed leader said.

Donetsk has been held by Russian-backed separatists since 2014 and it is one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow attempted to annex in October, in violation of international law.

The news comes after the Ukrainian military said 760 Russian soldiers were killed Saturday, but did not specify where.

Russian forces “lost 760 people killed just yesterday, (and) continue to attempt offensive actions on Bakhmut,” the military’s general staff said Sunday.

Some context: Russian units have been pressing an offensive towards the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk for months but have suffered heavy losses as Ukrainian forces have targeted them in what is largely open rural territory.

Russian strikes killed at least six people in the Donetsk, Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr?Zelensky?delivers his nightly address from his office in Kyiv, Ukraine, on December 30.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr?Zelensky?said that he thinks Ukraine’s air defense can become “the most powerful in Europe” and help uphold security for his country and Europe.?

“Ukrainian air defense can become the most powerful in Europe, and this will be a guarantee of security not only for our country, but also for the entire continent,” Zelensky said in his nightly address Friday.?

Latest round of attacks: Ukrainian officials again praised the efforts of their air defense crews when a new round of Russian strikes pounded several regions Saturday.

The country’s military said it was able to knock away 12 of the more than 20 missiles launched at Ukraine.

“Air Defense Forces are heroes and a real shield of our sky. We thank them!” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in?a post on Telegram.

Russia’s currency hit an eight-month low Thursday, adding to sharp declines in December as global oil prices fell, and Western sanctions targeted Russia’s energy sector.

The ruble hovered below 72 to the dollar, down 18% from the start of the month, and its weakest level since late April.

After almost halving in value in the first weeks of the war, the ruble has held up remarkably well for most of the year, trading within a narrow range.

The ruble has been helped by measures from Russia’s central bank, which more than doubled interest rates at the start of the war, introduced?capital controls, and forced exporters to convert 80% of their earnings into rubles, artificially creating demand for the currency. It later rolled back some of those policies as the exchange rate stabilized.

Read more?here.

A remote Russian republic is offering to pay the tuition fees of students whose parents are enlisted in the military, according to the region’s education minister.

Aybulat Khazhin, education minister of Bashkortostan, said on Telegram that students whose parents have been drafted to serve in the Russian army will receive coverage for their college tuition, dormitory expenses and additional financial support.

Some context:?In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an immediate “partial mobilization” in a bid to reinforce his faltering invasion of Ukraine. The controversial move?sparked protests and an exodus of young men?from Russia who were at risk of punishment if they refused to be drafted.

Russian officials ended the draft in November and claimed that its?target of recruiting 300,000 personnel?had been completed.

Putin reviews a military honor guard with Xi Jinping in Beijing in June of 2018.

In opening remarks during a video conference Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin invited his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to visit Moscow next spring. He added that the two countries would strengthen cooperation between their armed forces, and pointed to growth in trade despite “unfavorable market conditions.”

Bilateral relations are “the best in history, and withstand all tests,” he said. “We share the same views on the causes, course and logic of the ongoing transformation of the global geopolitical landscape.”

Xi also delivered opening remarks, saying “against the background of a difficult international situation, China is ready to increase political cooperation with Russia” and to be “global partners,” according to the Russian state media translation of the broadcast.

Moscow and Beijing have drawn closer in recent years, with Xi and Putin declaring the two countries had a “no limits” partnership weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

China has since refused to condemn the aggression, instead repeatedly laying blame for the conflict on NATO and the United States – and remaining one of Russia’s key remaining supporters as it grows increasingly isolated on the global stage.

But more than 10 months into the grinding war, the world looks much different – and the dynamic between both partners has shifted accordingly, experts say.

Instead of an anticipated swift victory, Putin’s invasion has faltered with numerous?setbacks on the battlefield,?including?a lack of basic equipment. Morale within parts of Russia is low, with many civilians facing?economic hardship during the bitter winter.

On Thursday, Russia launched what Ukrainian officials described as one of the?biggest missile barrages?since the war began in February, with explosions rattling villages and cities across Ukraine, damaging civilian infrastructure and killing at least three people.

Ukrainian officials have been cautioning for days that Russia is preparing to launch an all-out assault on the power grid to close out 2022, plummeting the country into darkness as Ukrainians attempt to ring in the New Year and celebrate the Christmas holidays, which for the country’s Orthodox Christians falls on January 7.

“China is eager for (the war) to end,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center.

“Xi will try to emphasize the importance of peace to Putin,” she added. “As Russia is getting impatient with the lack of progress on the battlefield, the timing is ripening for peace talk in China’s eyes.”

Read more here.