Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 679

Summary for Wednesday, 3rd January 2024 - DAY 679

• Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and the north-eastern city of Kharkiv killed at least five people on Tuesday and injured dozens of others, Ukrainian officials said. The attacks caused widespread damage and hit power supplies, Ukraine’s authorities said.
  
  
• Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said gas pipelines had been damaged in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district, while electricity and water had been cut off in several districts of the capital. Heating and water supplies were damaged in Kharkiv, said its mayor, Ihor Terekhov.
  
  
• Russia said it had accidentally bombed a village in its own southern Voronezh region near Ukraine. In a statement quoted by Russian news agencies, the Russian army said “an abnormal discharge of aircraft ammunition occurred over the village of Petropavlovka in the Voronezh region. There are no casualties.”
  
  
• Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, urged faster supplies of air defence systems, combat drones and long-range missiles. His ministry said Kuleba called on Ukraine’s western partners to respond to a new Russian strike on Ukraine by “accelerating the supply of additional air defence systems, combat drones of all types, long-range missiles with a range of 300+ km”.
  
  
• Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda, and Latvia’s president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, also called for more air defence systems for Ukraine.
  
  
• Turkey said it would not allow two British minehunter ships to transit its waters en route to the Black Sea for use by Ukraine. Turkey is enforcing an international pact under which it can block passage of military ships of warring parties through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. It exempts naval ships if they are returning to their normal home bases in the Black Sea.
  
  
• One man was killed and seven people were injured on Tuesday in a Ukrainian attack on the city and region of Belgorod, near Russia’s border with Ukraine, the Russian defence ministry and regional officials claimed.
  

Deadly strikes hit residential buildings in Ukraine and a Russian border region on Tuesday as an escalation of aerial attacks also wounded dozens and prompted Kyiv to urge speedier western weapons shipments

‘Houses were shaking’ after powerful explosions rock Sevastopol and area overnight

Latest images coming across the wires from Ukraine:

Ukraine launched 12 missiles and several drones in the early hours of Wednesday on Russia’s southern region of Belgorod

The EU has imposed sanctions on Russia’s state-run diamond company Alrosa and its chief executive as part of a ban on imports of the precious stones over the Ukraine war.

The Russian military has said it shot down 12 Ukrainian missiles over the southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, as Kyiv’s forces seek to embarrass President Vladimir Putin and puncture his argument that life in Russia is going on as normal despite the 22-month war.

Russia's new counterbattery radar blown up hours after arriving in Ukraine

Ukraine has taken out a brand-new Yastreb-AV counterbattery radar system, according to Kyiv, just hours after Moscow said it had deployed one of the artillery-seeking systems in the war-torn country.

On Tuesday, Russia's Defense Ministry said Moscow's troops were using the new Russian Yastreb-AV counterbattery radar in Ukraine, designed to detect artillery systems like the U.S.-provided HIMARS as well as howitzers and mortars commonly used by Kyiv's fighters.

The system "increases the efficiency of artillery fire and survivability on the battlefield," the Kremlin said. It is designed to track an opponent's missiles back to its launcher, finding the precise location of the artillery system before passing on this information to its own artillery.

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It is the "most modern Russian radar system with a phased array antenna for reconnaissance of artillery firing positions," Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday. It works alongside other counterbattery systems Russia has deployed to the battlefield in Ukraine, such as the prized Zoopark set of systems.
But within just a few hours, Kyiv's special forces said Ukraine had hit a Yastreb-AV system at an unspecified location in the south of the country with one of its dozens of HIMARS—the very artillery system high up on the Yastreb-AV's list to detect.

The system was "destroyed," Ukraine said, posting a brief clip appearing to show a Ukrainian reconnaissance drone tracking the Yastreb-AV in the Ukrainian countryside before the moment of impact.
It is not clear how many Yastreb-AV systems are in use in Ukraine, but Kyiv's military said in August it had destroyed one Yastreb-AV.

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

Both Moscow and Kyiv are grappling to use their counterbattery radar systems more effectively than the other, searching for and taking out the artillery systems threatening their troops.

With the grueling, attritional war closing in fast on the two-year mark, hunting down Russia's counterbattery radar systems will only be more important for Ukraine. Experts previously suggested to Newsweek that against a larger military such as Russia's, Ukraine's targeting of radar systems could have a "disproportionate" impact on Russian operations.

In recent months, Ukraine has publicized and amplified numerous reports of successful strikes on Russian radar systems. Ukrainian officials have lauded the reported destruction of $10 million Zoopark counterbattery radar systems, and the U.K. government said in mid-July 2023 that "only a handful" of the Zooparks Russia sent over the border into Ukraine remain in use.

Ukrainian media reports suggest each of the new Yastreb-AV systems could cost up to $250 million, which would be significantly more expensive than systems like the Zoopark.

Ukrainian Forces make advances near Verbove, Zaporizhzhia Oblast

Ukrainian forces also repelled Russian attacks in the Kupiansk, Bakhmut and Kherson directions, according to Ukraine’s General Staff.

Verbove, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, 3 January 2024. Credit: Schreenshot from DeepStateMap

On 2 January, Ukrainian Forces advanced in Verbove, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, “forcing the Russians to abandon some positions,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on 3 January. 
Ukraine’s Defense Forces also repelled Russian troops near Robotyne in Zaporizhzhia Oblast on 2 January.
ISW also reported, citing a Russian milblogger, that Ukrainian forces recaptured “unspecified positions south of Verbove” on 1 January.

On 2 January, there were 57 battles between Ukrainian and Russian troops. In the Kupiansk direction, Ukrainian forces repelled seven attacks near Synkivka and east of Petropavlivka, Kharkiv Oblast, where the Russian military “unsuccessfully tried to break through the defense of Ukrainian troops,” Ukraine’s General Staff reported.

In the Bakhmut direction, Ukrainian soldiers suppressed six Russian attacks in the areas of Bohdanivka, Klishchiivka and Andriivka in Donetsk Oblast. In the Avdiivka direction, Ukrainian defenders continue to contain the aggressor, who does not abandon attempts to encircle the city of Avdiivka.

Ukrainian troops repelled eight Russian attacks on 2 January near Novobakhmutivka, Berdychiv, and Avdiivka and another 16 attacks in Pervomaiske and Nevelske, Donetsk Oblast.

In the Kherson direction, Ukrainian soldiers continue to hold a bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnipro River and “continue to expand it,” Ukraine’s General Staff said. Despite significant losses, Russia’s occupying forces do not abandon attempts to oust Ukrainian units from the occupied positions. Russia made nine unsuccessful assault actions there on 2 January.

According to Ukraine’s General Staff, the Russian military lost on 2 January 680 Russian soldiers, seven combat armored vehicles, 15 artillery systems, three anti-aircraft systems, 36 operational-tactical level UAVs, 73 missiles, 26 vehicles and 14 units of special equipment.

According to Ukraine’s General Staff, Russian forces carried out 89 missile and 72 aviation strikes and launched 48 shellings from multiple launch rocket systems on 2 January. Russian attacks resulted in injuring 130 civilians, including children, and damaging over 100 private and apartment residential buildings and other civilian and industrial infrastructure in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa oblasts.

What Russia's escalating air attacks mean

Changing tactics

Number of casualties as result of missile attack on Kyiv rises to 54 people – city administration

Russian police chief killed in Ukraine after swapping jail for war

A former Russian police chief has been killed in Ukraine fighting alongside convicts after swapping a jail sentence for military service.
Igor Trifonov, the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Yekaterinburg department, was killed while fighting in Ukraine with Russia's military at the end of 2023, his lawyer, Olga Kezik, told Russian newspaper Kommersant.

In 2022, he was jailed for nine years and four months in a maximum security prison on charges of bribe-taking and illegal possession of weapons, but was released in late 2023 to fight in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has recruited tens of thousands of prisoners since the full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine began in February 2022, offering them presidential pardons for six months of military service in Ukraine.
The convicts have largely been deployed as part of Russia's "Storm-Z" squads, which carry out highly attritional, infantry-led frontal assaults at the most dangerous parts of the battlefield.

Newsweek learned that the total number of convicts who have been offered presidential pardons in exchange for six months fighting in Ukraine exceeds 100,000, with some 50,000 now free to walk the streets of Russia.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.
"Igor Trifonov's family intends to prove his non-involvement in the crime for which he was convicted," Kezik said.
Kezik told another local publication, It's My City, that Trifonov "wanted to prove to his homeland that he did not do this."
"He told me: 'Olga Vyacheslavovna, you fight in the courts, and I'll go there. Together we will win,'" the attorney said. "Unfortunately, this is what happened."

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Kezik told Kommersant that she learned Trifonov died shortly after being sent to fight in Ukraine. The circumstances of his death were not reported.

Trifonov headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Yekaterinburg from 2011 to 2017. He later headed the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Russian republic of Karachay-Cherkessia, local outlets reported.

A list of some of the prisoners recruited into the Russian military obtained by Newsweek revealed that men past retirement age are among them. The majority are convicts from the country's ethnic minority republics, Olga Romanova, the head of Russia Behind Bars, a charity advocating prisoners' rights, told Newsweek.

The practice of recruiting in Russia's penal colonies began when the Kremlin was believed to be facing acute manpower shortages. Luring prisoners in with pardons from Russian President Vladimir Putin and cash incentives has allowed Moscow to boost its manpower without mobilizing the young, urban population, which could result in political repercussions.

A Russian regional governor said on Wednesday he had ordered the rebuilding of nine houses in a village that was accidentally bombed by one of Russia’s own warplanes

IAEA states its experts were denied access to some of Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant's reactor halls

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has stated on 3 January that its experts had been recently banned from inspecting the reactor halls of three power units at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) for the first time.

Russians launch attacks on Kharkiv

The Russians have launched attacks on the city of Kharkiv on the evening of 3 January. There are reports about explosions.

Russia, Ukraine exchange hundreds of prisoners in biggest swap so far

Officials said nearly 500 prisoners of war from both sides returned home in the first exchange in nearly five months.

Closing Summary

Here’s a summary of the day’s events:

• Ukraine launched 12 missiles and several drones in the early hours of Wednesday on Russia’s southern region of Belgorod, Russia’s defence ministry and local authorities said.
  
  
• The Polish foreign minister has called on allies to deliver long-range missiles to Ukraine to help Kyiv target “launch sites and command centres” amid a new wave of Russian attacks.
  
  
• Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and the north-eastern city of Kharkiv killed at least five people on Tuesday and injured dozens of others, Ukrainian officials said. The attacks caused widespread damage and hit power supplies, Ukraine’s authorities said.
  
  
• The Nato Support and Procurement Agency has said would support a group of countries with a contract for up to 1,000 Patriot Guidance Enhanced Missiles.
  
  
• The EU has imposed sanctions on Russia’s state-run diamond company Alrosa and its chief executive as part of a ban on imports of the precious stones over the Ukraine war.
  
  
• Polish farmers will resume their blockade at a border crossing with Ukraine from tomorrow, Reuters reports. “I will try to convince carriers not to use blockades as a method of defending their interests. We will do everything to effectively protect their interests,” prime minister Donald Tusk said during a press conference.
  
  
• Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said gas pipelines had been damaged in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district, while electricity and water had been cut off in several districts of the capital. Heating and water supplies were damaged in Kharkiv, said its mayor, Ihor Terekhov.
  
  
• Russia said it had accidentally bombed a village in its own southern Voronezh region near Ukraine. In a statement quoted by Russian news agencies, the Russian army said “an abnormal discharge of aircraft ammunition occurred over the village of Petropavlovka in the Voronezh region. There are no casualties.”
  
  
• Norway will send two F-16 fighter jets to Denmark to contribute to the training of Ukrainian pilots on the use of the US-made airplane, the Norwegian defence minister has said.
  
  
• Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, urged faster supplies of air defence systems, combat drones and long-range missiles. His ministry said Kuleba called on Ukraine’s western partners to respond to a new Russian strike on Ukraine by “accelerating the supply of additional air defence systems, combat drones of all types, long-range missiles with a range of 300+ km”.
  
  
• Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda, and Latvia’s president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, also called for more air defence systems for Ukraine.
  
  
• Turkey said it would not allow two British minehunter ships to transit its waters en route to the Black Sea for use by Ukraine. Turkey is enforcing an international pact under which it can block passage of military ships of warring parties through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. It exempts naval ships if they are returning to their normal home bases in the Black Sea.
  
  
• One man was killed and seven people were injured on Tuesday in a Ukrainian attack on the city and region of Belgorod, near Russia’s border with Ukraine, the Russian defence ministry and regional officials claimed.