Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 683

Summary for Sunday, 7th January 2024 - DAY 683

• Five children are among the dead in a Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a local official has said. Rescuers have continued to comb through the rubble of the at the site of the attack, searching for survivors.
  
  
• The Russian military is on course to lose 500,000 personnel within the next year, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence. The MoD tweeted: “The average daily number of Russian casualties in Ukraine has risen by almost 300 during the course of 2023. If the numbers continue at the current rate over the next year, Russia will have lost over half a million personnel in Ukraine.”
  
  
• The UK’s Ministry of Defence says Russia is continuing to struggle to establish air superiority over Ukraine. Three Russian combat jets were shot down just before Christmas and that affected ground forces’ tactical objectives later in the month, the MoD said. It added that Russia has been increasing its aerial strikes in recent days “but at a lower level than before the shootdowns”.
  
  
• Denmark’s transfer of 19 American-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will take place in the second quarter of 2024, once Ukrainian pilots have completed training, the defence ministry has said. The Danish ministry said in a statement: “Based on the current timetable, the donation should take place in the second quarter of 2024. It’s mainly an issue of finishing the training of Ukrainian personnel who will operate the planes.”
  
  
• Polish farmers suspended their blockade of a major crossing into neighbouring Ukraine following the signing of an agreement with the Polish government. Truckers continue to blockade three other main border crossings into Ukraine in protest at “unfair competition” from Ukrainian counterparts and against the relaxation of access rules to the European Union for Ukrainian firms.
  
  
• Reuters reports that the Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office has provided further evidence that Russia attacked Ukraine with missiles supplied by North Korea, showcasing the fragments. On Friday, a senior adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia hit Ukraine this week with missiles supplied by North Korea for the first time during its invasion.
  

Ukraine air force says it downed 21 of 28 attack drones launched by Russia overnight

Russian attacks in the Kherson region have injured five people, including two children

The Russian military targeted the residential quarters of the populated areas of the region, a critical infrastructure facility in the Kherson district, territory of factories in Kherson. As a result of Russian aggression, five people were injured, including two children.

Five children among the 11 people killed by Russian missile strike on Pokrovsk, says governor

As a result of this barbaric attack, 11 people died, including five children aged from three to 17 years.
Ten people were injured. Rescue operations are continuing. Closer to morning we will have a better understanding of the final numbers of those who were injured.

Some of the latest images coming out of Donetsk:

In its latest intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Rosgvardia, the Russian National Guard, is bolstering its resources and personnel because of upheavals in Russia’s internal security scene from the war in Ukraine.

Elements of private military company Wagner group came under Rosgvardia from October 2023, followed on 3 January 2024 by the Donetsk People’s Republic’s (DNR) “Vostok” battalion.
Moscow has also been advancing its efforts to dissolve the DNR’s “Kaskad” group, which specialises in drone operations, and subordinate parts of it to Rosgvardia.
In July 2023, the Russian State Duma authorised Rosgvardia to employ heavier weaponry.
New capabilities, along with its augmentation with experienced veterans from other groups, will likely represent a significant increase in combat effectiveness.

Kherson’s regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said late on Sunday morning that a market and residential buildings have been hit by Russian shelling in residential quarters.

‘We were sent to slaughter’ – captured Russian soldier reveals woeful training

Back in Russia, discontent over the treatment of soldiers is growing and on Saturday wives of mobilised servicemen held a protest right next to the Kremlin.

A captured Russian soldier has described how he was sent to the front after training which consisted of firing a rifle “two or three times.”
In a video posted on social media by Anton Gerashchenko, advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the man says: “They gave us some automatic rifles and drove us to the firing range.
“There I fired two or three times and after four days we were sent to slaughter, to war.”
The soldier claims his commanders lied to them about what they would be doing on the front lines and gave no indication that they’d be required to assault Ukrainian positions.
He said: “We were told: ‘Now you’ll just sit in defense, stay a little bit and strengthen the positions and then you’ll immediately retreat.’

“As it turns out, we came, sat in defense for a day or two and that was it, then we were sent directly to the front line.”
He then says he was wounded and taken to a hospital where they “bandaged me up” before sending him back to the front.
“I was there for five or six days. And that was it, I was discharged immediately,” he says.

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1743357998578201053?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1743357998578201053%7Ctwgr%5Ee82199cc98b6e957549c8c97ac1d67f2a0d17bad%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kyivpost.com%2Fpost%2F26430

It’s far from the first time Russian soldiers have made such claims – last month a video emerged of a group of Russian soldiers in an expletive-laden video expressing their outrage at learning they will not be territorial defense soldiers as they thought, but would be assault troops sent to the front with no training.
Recorded at an unknown location, a group of men can be seen chanting “f**king commanders.”
The camera then pans to one soldier who launches into a furious tirade.
“Check this out,” he says. “We’ve been here since the 26th, f**king officers have been f**king lying to our faces that we are territorial defense.
“And now the lieutenant colonel came out and said it’s the first time he’s heard that, and it turns out we are a rifle unit.
“We are f**king assault troops, we are not territorial defense and they just tell us now!”

Back in Russia, discontent over the treatment of soldiers is growing – wives of Russians mobilised to fight in Ukraine symbolically laid flowers Saturday at the flame of the unknown soldier right beneath the walls of the Kremlin and demanded the return of their husbands from the front.
Anger has been growing for months among relatives of reservists who President Vladimir Putin mobilised in September 2022, seven months after the initial invasion of Ukraine.
The mobilisation is a sensitive subject for authorities, who have so far refrained from repressing what has become a nascent movement of revolt.
Saturday saw some 15 women brave the winter cold to place red flowers at the site in the heart of the capital.
“We want to draw the authorities’ attention and that of the public to our appeal. We have tried several means. We made a written appeal to lawmakers, officials, administrations – but we were not heard,” Maria, a 47-year-old sales manager, whose husband was mobilised in November 2022, told AFP.

Summary of the day so far...

• Charles Michel has announced he will step down as European Council president after running in the European parliament elections set for June. The surprise move means EU leaders will have to swiftly agree on a successor to take up his vacated council post, and could pave the way for Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to exert more influence over EU policymaking.
  
  
• Five children were among the 11 people killed by a Russian missile strike that hit in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk on Saturday, the governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk region said. According to Reuters, Vadym Filashkin told Ukrainian television that Russian forces engaged in “mass shelling” of Pokrovsk at around 3pm.
  
  
• Ukraine’s air force said on Sunday that its air defence systems shot down 21 out of 28 attack drones launched by Russia overnight. Posting on Telegram, the air force said Russia targeted mainly the south and east of Ukraine, with three cruise missiles also reportedly being launched at Ukraine overnight.
  

Russian President Vladimir Putin reveals country’s new ‘enemy’

Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot accept that his incompetent army has failed in its invasion of Ukraine.
So he’s desperately trying to spin a story to his people that they’re already at war with the West.

First, Putin insisted his invasion was to “de-nazify” the Kyiv-based Ukraine government – despite President Volodymyr Zelensky being a Jew.

Then, once his three-day invasion began dragging on for months, his war was recast as a “holy crusade” battling the “forces of Satan”.

Now, as the conflict approaches its third year, Putin is having to find a fresh argument to appease a general public struggling to come to grips with a horrific death toll.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proclaimed Ukraine “is not the enemy” and has instead set his sights on a new target. Photo: AP

“Ukraine itself is not our enemy,” Putin told a soldier while visiting a hospital for war wounded. “Those who want to destroy Russian statehood and to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield are mainly in the West.”
Putin then attempted to recast his war as Russia’s eternal ideological struggle.
“The point is not that they (the West) are helping our enemy. They are our enemy,” he said. “They are solving their own problems with their hands. That is what it is all about. Unfortunately, this has been the case for centuries and continues to be the case today.”

“Ukraine itself is not our enemy,” Putin said to a soldier. “Those who want to destroy Russian statehood and to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield are mainly in the West.” POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Analysts for the US-based think-tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believe Putin’s rhetoric is a sign the war is no closer to ending.

Instead, his words display “an effort to set conditions for permanent Russian military build-up and to justify high battlefield sacrifices.”
“Putin’s statements likely suggest that he is preparing a long-term justification to keep forces mobilized and engaged in combat for the perpetual defense of Russia’s sovereignty against the West,” it concludes.

A high blood price. But what’s the product?

“Though it has been their (the West’s) goal to deal with Russia from time immemorial, we will deal with them faster,” Putin assured the wounded during his hospital visit.
“And the most important thing we have is … the unity of our people and society. Because there is an understanding of how important your job on the battlefield is in the armed struggle for our country and our future.”
That, Russian analysts believe, is the whole point of Putin’s latest spin.
“The war in Ukraine created an entirely new political reality for the Kremlin and prompted the enshrining of a revamped ideological foundation for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule,” argues Carnegie Endowment senior fellow Andrei Kolesnikov.

Now, Putin is all about “traditional spiritual and moral values.”
And his totalitarian government, says Kolesnikov, “requires a certain degree of self-justification.”

But Putin’s previous proclamations of “denazifying” Ukraine and “battling the forces of satan” are no longer enough.
A recent declassified US intelligence report estimates Russian casualties (dead and wounded) since the start of the war in February 2022 to be about 315,000.

Police officers and residents inspect damage outside a destroyed high-rise building following a Russian missile attack in central Kyiv, on January 3, 2024. AFP via Getty Images


Utility workers repair water pipes outside a high-rise building destroyed following the missile attack. AFP via Getty Images

Ukraine’s losses remain classified.
But they are also believed to be devastatingly high.
“Such high casualties for small territorial gains are likely prompting Putin to present a strong and ideological justification to continue the prolonged war of choice on which he has launched Russia,” the ISW analysts agree. “Ukraine needs no such contorted justifications for the high losses and suffering that Putin’s invasion is inflicting on its people, even when Ukraine’s military operations do not produce the desired results. The war really is existential for Ukraine as it is not for Russia.”

Unassailable ego

“The Putin regime has put in place a permanent government and highly personalized style of semi-totalitarian rule,” argues Kolesnikov. “Such a regime requires the enshrinement of basic ideological precepts and historical justifications for its despotism, all of which must also be spread to the masses.”

It also explains the constant stream of outlandish and implausible claims voiced by Kremlin propagandists.
“The messages pushed by the Putin regime’s leading ideologists increasingly resemble caricatures,” Kolesnikov states. “Indeed, the less credible the information, the more willing Putin’s ideologists are to use it.”

One recent accusation by long-term Putin associate Security Council chief Nikolai Patruschev states that “Anglo-Saxon elites” believe Siberia to be the safest refuge from an impending eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano in the western United States. And that, Patruschev insists, is why the West wants to invade Russia.

Other such extraordinary claims include Poland having secret territorial designs over Belarus and Ukraine.
And Finland wanted to seize a broad swath of northern Russia.

But none of this masks Russia as being the state that invaded a neighbor.
“The pattern is as self-serving as it is clumsy and implausible,” says Kolesnikov.
“All of this may look like empty political talk, but such claims serve several purposes all at once. They are simultaneously a means of delivering ideology (and) the instruments that are used to define and create it … In the hands of the Kremlin, ideology under Putin is both a political strategy and the product of its employment.”

The Kremlin relies on stories designed to support slogans such as “We are not the same as everybody else!” “We have a special DNA!” “We are fighting godlessness and the enemies on our country’s Western borders!” “We have to defend ourselves by reclaiming our ancient territories and ‘liberating’ them!’”
“In short, the best defense of the beleaguered Russian nation is offense,” says Kolesnikov.

Signs and portents

“They (the West) have been nurturing the Kyiv regime for quite a long time, precisely to create this conflict,” Putin proclaimed. “Unfortunately for us, they have achieved this: they started this conflict and are trying to achieve their objective, namely the task of fighting Russia.”

His goal, the ISW analysts believe, is to convince his troops – and public – that the unexpectedly successful resistance by Ukraine was to be expected.

That the battle had always been against Europe and the United States.
And that the fighting must continue.

Former New Zealand diplomat Ian Hill argues in the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter that Putin is displaying renewed confidence amid support from his allies in China and North Korea, and the US Republican Party’s opposition towards rearming Ukraine.
“The war in Ukraine may be deadlocked for now, but Putin thinks it’s going Moscow’s way,” he writes. “Economic stability, coupled with tough domestic controls reinforced by pervasive propaganda, has ensured political quiescence within Russia. Surveys indicate the war in Ukraine is increasingly unpopular with Russians. But there’s no sign yet this jeopardises the regime’s secure hold on power.”

President Putin recently asserted that Moscow had recruited an extra 486,000 men for the army in 2023.
via REUTERS

He states that they will be equipped and trained in time for a new major offensive in 2024.

With the failure of international sanctions to cripple his economy, his greatest challenge is now to motivate his populace.
“Having failed to chart a workable path for Russia’s future and having lost a race with the so-called global West and a rising global East centered on China, Putin’s regime is unable to abandon its leadership ambitions,” concludes Kolesnikov. “Instead it is directing all of its energy into clawing its way back to a storied past.”

More than 100 residents of Russian border city of Belgorod evacuated further away from Ukraine - officials

Poet Maksym Kryvtsov killed in action

Ukrainian poet and soldier Maksym "Dali" Kryvtsov has been killed in action.

Missile debris shot down near Dnipro destroy 1 building and damage 16 others – photo

Ukrainian Forces report substantial Russian losses on Avdiivka front

The Russian troops have suffered huge losses on the Avdiivka front as of January 7, 2024, with hundreds of units of their damaged armored vehicles now rusting in the fields, stated Anton Kotsukon, spokesman for the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, during the "Unified News" telethon.

The situation on the Avdiivka front remains steadily difficult yet controlled. After a brief lull, combat has intensified, with the enemy mounting more large-scale attacks and occasionally deploying armored vehicles, noted the serviceman.

Hundreds of Russian armored vehicles have been destroyed, including over 200 tanks in the Avdiivka direction alone. "When you consider the loss of armored vehicles numerically, not every European country possesses an army with such an amount of equipment that the Russians have lost just on the Avdiivka front," emphasized Kotsukon.

He further commented that due to the to the fact that the Russians cannot make significant headway on the battlefield, they have recently started launching heavy missile attacks on rear cities, including Pokrovsk and Mirnograd.

Kotsukon also mentioned that while the Russians mainly use FPV drones during daylight hours, there have been recent instances of them equipping drones with thermal vision for nighttime operations.

"The Russians are trying to use them to control the roads and target moving equipment. However, our guys are also coming up with various countermeasures against these drones. It's an endless clash of sword and shield—when something new emerges among strike drones, something is also developed to counteract it," he explained.

Previously, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that the Ukrainian military had repelled 13 attacks on the left-bank bridgehead.

Russian pontoon bridge “defected” to Ukraine

“Border guards in Chernihiv Oblast watched the suspicious structure until it was stranded near the Desna Bank on Ukrainian territory. It turned out to be a pontoon bridge, which until recently served as a crossing point for Russians. […] Sappers have determined that the metal structure is not a threat,” the report reads.

Closing Summary

• The primary task of Sweden’s foreign policy in the coming years will be the support to Ukraine, Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billstrom, told a defence conference.
  
  
• The UK said it plans to spend £300m on a new programme to produce advanced nuclear fuel suitable for the next generation of power-generating reactors, with the secretary of state for energy security and net zero, Claire Coutinho, warning that Vladimir Putin won’t hold the UK “to ransom on nuclear fuel”.
  
  
• In Russia, more than 100 residents of the Russian border city of Belgorod have evacuated to an area farther from Ukraine, local officials said. Belgorod is just over half an hour’s drive from the border with Ukraine, making it a vital stop in Russian supply lines. The city has come under extensive shelling and drone attacks for months.
  
  
• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, attended a conference in Sweden via video link. He said: “Even Russia can be brought back within the framework of international law. Its aggression can be defeated.”
  
  
• Charles Michel has announced he will step down early as European Council president after running in the European parliament elections set for June. The surprise move means EU leaders will have to swiftly agree on a successor to take up his vacated council post, and could pave the way for Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to exert more influence over EU policymaking.
  
  
• Five children were among the 11 people killed by a Russian missile strike that hit in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk on Saturday, the governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk region said. According to Reuters, Vadym Filashkin told Ukrainian television that Russian forces engaged in “mass shelling” of Pokrovsk at around 3pm.
  
  
• Ukraine’s air force said on Sunday that its air defence systems shot down 21 out of 28 attack drones launched by Russia overnight. Posting on Telegram, the air force said Russia targeted mainly the south and east of Ukraine, with three cruise missiles also reportedly being launched at Ukraine overnight.