Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 671

Summary for Tuesday, 26th December 2023 (Boxing Day) - DAY 671

Key developments over the past 24 hours:

• Ukraine carried out an air attack in Crimea and destroyed a major Russian navy vessel, Ukraine’s air force commander has said. A huge explosion and fireball engulfed part of the Crimean port of Feodosia early on Tuesday morning. An initial fire was followed by a massive secondary explosion.
  The commander of Ukraine’s air force, Lieut Gen Mykola Oleshchuk, said on Telegram that the attack destroyed a major Russian Navy vessel, the landing ship Novocherkask.
  The Russian-installed governor of Crimea said earlier that the assault sparked a fire in Feodosia.
  
  
• Ukraine’s cabinet of ministers has submitted to parliament a draft law lowering the age of those who can be mobilised for combat duty to 25 from 27. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, said a week ago that the military had proposed mobilising up to half a million more Ukrainians but it was a “highly sensitive” issue that the military and government would have to discuss.
  
  
• The Ukrainian military shot down 28 Russian drones out of 31 launched from the annexed Crimea peninsula, mostly targeting the south of the country, it said on Monday. Air defences also destroyed two missiles, it said.
  
  
• Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been located at a penal colony in the Arctic Yamal-Nenets region of northern Russia, his spokesperson has confirmed. Kira Yarmysh was quoted as saying Navalny’s lawyer managed to see him on Monday. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, expressed concern at the weekend about Navalny’s whereabouts as he had been missing in Russia’s prison system for nearly three weeks.
  
  
• Russia said emergency workers had put out a fire on a Soviet-era nuclear-powered cargo-icebreaker ship. The state company that runs the vessel said on Monday there were no casualties and no threat to the security of the reactor.
  
  
• Russia on Monday accused western countries of stirring up tensions in Moscow-friendly Serbia, which has been rocked by protests over alleged fraud in elections held on 17 December.
  
  
• Five Russian UAVs (drones) over the region were “destroyed” by Ukrainian forces late on Sunday evening, said Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
  
  
• The Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union’s members have signed a free trade agreement with Iran, Russian news agency Tass has reported.
  
  
• The Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, will pay a two-day visit to Russia, after skipping a summit in Kyrgyzstan Putin attended in October.
  

Ukraine claims major Russian navy ship destroyed in Crimea air assault

Ukraine carried out an air attack on Feodosia in Crimea, the country’s air force commander said on Tuesday, after the Russian-installed governor of the Crimea said the assault sparked a fire in the town’s port area.
Reuters reports that the commander of Ukraine’s air force, Lieut Gen Mykola Oleshchuk, said on Telegram, without providing evidence, that the attack destroyed a major Russian navy vessel, the landing ship Novocherkask.
Oleshchuk said:

And the fleet in Russia is getting smaller and smaller! Thanks to the Air Force pilots and everyone involved for the filigree work!

The report could not be independently verified and there was no immediate comment from Russia.
Both Russia and Ukraine have often exaggerated the losses they claim to have inflicted upon each other in the 22-month-long war, while underestimated their own casualty and equipment losses.
Earlier on Tuesday, Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor of Crimea, said only that the Ukrainian attack resulted in a fire in the town’s port area that was promptly contained.
Aksyonov said on the Telegram:

All relevant emergency services are on site. Residents of several houses will be evacuated.

Footage posted on several Russian news outlets on Telegram showed powerful explosions and fires over a port area.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in a broadly condemned move in 2014.

Photos of destroyed Novocherkassk landing ship emerge

Iryna Balachuk - Ukrainska Pravda

Photo: DeepState on Telegram

The large landing ship Novocherkassk in temporarily occupied Crimea was very seriously damaged as a result of an attack by the Ukrainian Air Force, which can be seen in the satellite images.
Source: DeepState on Telegram
Quote: "In the satellite image taken on the morning of 24 December the large landing ship is indicated by a frame. The other image shows its wreckage [after the attack – ed.]."

Photo: Telegram DeepState


Photo:  з Telegram DeepState



Background:

• Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk, Commander of the Air Force, confirmed that Ukrainian defenders had targeted the Novocherkassk ship in occupied Feodosiia. 
  
  
• The Ministry of Defence of Russia confirmed that the Ukrainian Armed Forces hit the large landing ship Novocherkassk in occupied Feodosiia (Crimea) with missiles fired from Su-24 aircraft on the night of 25-26 December.
  
  
• Novocherkassk, a large landing ship from the Russian Black Sea Fleet, had been destroyed near Feodosiia by cruise missiles from tactical aircraft belonging to Ukraine’s Air Force.
  
  
• The Russian Defence Ministry reported that the large landing ship Novocherkassk was damaged in Feodosiia last night "during the repelling of an attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine using air-guided missiles."
  
  
• The Russian ministry claims that "two Ukrainian Su-24s that were launching missiles were destroyed by air defence during anti-aircraft combat". Ukraine’s Air Force refuted the statement.
  

Russia confirms navy vessel hit

One person was killed, two injured and a large landing ship called Novocherkassk was damaged in an overnight Ukrainian attack on the Crimean port city of Feodosia, Russia’s defence ministry and officials said.
The Interfax news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying that Ukraine had used guided missiles launched by aircraft to attack Feodosia.
Reuters reported that the Russia-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said on the Telegram messaging app that one person had been killed and two injured as a result of the attack.
There was no immediate report of how badly the ship was damaged, but videos circulating on Ukrainian channels showed an extensive fire in the port area.

Japan’s Mitsui & Co has decided to pull its employees out of Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 liquefied natural gas (LNG) project

- the Sankei newspaper reports, citing several sources.
The decision is yet another blow for the project.
Fearing the backlash from US sanctions targeting the project, foreign shareholders have suspended participation, renouncing their responsibilities for financing and for offtake contracts for the plant, the Russian daily Kommersant reported on Monday.
Sanctions have also resulted in Novatek, Russia’s largest LNG producer, declaring force majeure over LNG supplies from the project, industry sources told Reuters last week.

Russia claims to have stopped Ukraine's counteroffensive

Russia is saying its forces have stopped Ukraine’s counteroffensive and are now pushing forward on all fronts, according to a Tass news agency report of the defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s comments.

Taiwan’s economy ministry says it has expanded a list of sanctioned goods for Russia and Belarus in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Taiwan has condemned Russia’s attack and already joined the Western-led sanctions effort, though it is largely symbolic as there is only minimal direct trade between the island and Russia.
Announcing its latest round of sanctions, Taiwan’s economy ministry said the move was made “in order to fulfil international cooperation and prevent the export of our high-tech goods for military purposes”.
The list includes equipment for making semiconductors, the production of which Taiwan is a world leader in, as well as certain chemicals and medicines, adding to previous announcements which already targetted the chip industry.

Here is a video of the large explosion in Crimea as a Ukrainian airstrike hit a Russian warship during an overnight attack on the Crimean port city of Feodosia

- Russia’s defence ministry and officials said.
The Interfax news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying that Ukraine had used guided missiles launched by aircraft to attack Feodosia.
Reuters reported that the Russia-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said on the Telegram messaging app that one person had been killed and two injured as a result of the attack.

Some additional context on the Russian warship struck by Ukrainian forces in Crimea:

The Russian defence ministry, cited by the Interfax news agency, said Ukraine had used air-launched missiles to attack the Crimean port of Feodosia and that the Novocherkassk large landing ship had been damaged.
The attack could hinder any Russian attempt to seize more Ukrainian territory along the Black Sea coast.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 in a move Kyiv and the west condemned as an illegal seizure.
The Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said he thought it would be hard for the Novocherkassk – which can carry tanks and armoured vehicles and be used to land troops ashore – to re-enter service.
He told Radio Free Europe:

We can see how powerful the explosion was, what the detonation was like. After that, it’s very hard for a ship to survive, because this was not a rocket, this is the detonation of munitions.

Ukraine had used cruise missiles in the attack, without specifying what kind, Ihnat said. Britain and France have supplied Kyiv with such missiles.
Russia has hinted it may try to seize more Ukrainian territory along the Black Sea coast. Putin earlier this month said that Odesa, the headquarters of Ukraine’s navy, was “a Russian city”.
Footage posted on Russian news outlets on Telegram, purportedly from the port, showed powerful explosions detonating and fires burning.
Unverified social media videos purporting to capture the strike showed a vast explosion and ballooning flames lighting up the night sky. An unverified daytime photograph, which Ukrainian bloggers claimed showed the ship’s remains, depicted a charred, elongated clump of debris emerging out of the water by a dock.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-installed governor of Crimea, said on Telegram that one person had been killed. The RIA news agency said four people had been injured.
Although a Ukrainian counteroffensive has made little in the way of battlefield gains and the Russian military has regained the initiative in several places, Ukraine has been able to launch a series of attacks on Crimea, the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, inflicting serious damage.
Previous attacks have targeted ships in dry docks, warships moored in the main port of Sevastopol, airfields, the main Black Sea fleet HQ building, and the bridge that connects southern Russia to Crimea.
Throughout the war, Russia has used its fleet to impede Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea, the main export route for the agriculture and steel exports that formed a significant chunk of the country’s economy.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, quipped on Telegram that his air force had added to Russia’s submarine fleet by damaging the landing ship.

There will not be a single peaceful place for the occupiers in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian air force said its pilots had attacked Feodosia at about 2.30am (0030 GMT), destroying the Novocherkassk.
The commander of Ukraine’s air force, Mykola Oleshchuk, said on Telegram:

And the fleet in Russia is getting smaller and smaller! Thanks to the Air Force pilots and everyone involved for the filigree work!

Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said on Telegram it was obvious that Russia would not release detailed information about the attack at a time of war, but said Russia needed to do more to protect its assets in Crimea.
He said:

It’s clear that Crimea’s air defence systems must be strengthened. And it is clear that it [Ukraine] needs to be deprived of the opportunity to hit Russia.

Feodosia, which has a population of about 69,000 people, lies on the southern coast of the Crimean peninsula

The jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny on Tuesday confirmed his arrival at what he described as a snow-swept prison above the Arctic Circle

Navalny said he was in excellent spirits despite a tiring 20-day journey to get there.
He posted an update on X via his lawyers, after his allies lost touch with him for more than two weeks while he was in transit with no information about where he was being taken, prompting expressions of concern from western politicians.
His spokeswoman said on Monday that Navalny, 47, had been tracked down to the IK-3 penal colony north of the Arctic Circle located in Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets region about 1,900km north-east of Moscow.
Navalny wrote jokingly in his first post from his new prison, in reference to the harsh weather conditions there and Russia’s Father Christmas:

I am your new Father Frost.

A former TV journalist who opposes Russia’s war in Ukraine and who was disqualified on Saturday as a candidate for Russia’s upcoming presidential election has lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court

Members of the central electoral commission voted unanimously to reject the candidacy of Yekaterina Duntsova, citing “numerous violations” in the papers she had submitted in support of her bid.
Speaking to Reuters after submitting an appeal to the Supreme Court, Duntsova - who is not well known across Russia and by her own admission commands a core support base of thousands in a country of over 140 million people - made it clear that she did not expect her appeal to be successful.
But the 40-year-old said she had been unfairly barred from taking part in a contest widely expected to be won by incumbent Vladimir Putin who has been in power as either president or prime minister for more than 20 years.
By not letting her run, she said the authorities had deprived some young Russians of a way of expressing their views within what is a tightly controlled political system.

Grant Shapps, the UK secretary of state for defence, said today that the “latest destruction of Putin’s navy demonstrates that those who believe there’s a stalemate in the Ukraine war are wrong!”

He added:

They haven’t noticed that over the past 4 months 20% of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been destroyed.
Russia’s dominance in the Black Sea is now challenged and the new UK & Norway led Maritime Capability Coalition is helping to ensure Ukraine will win at sea.

After the Ukrainian air force said it struck the Novocherkassk navy ship, which was stationed in Crimean waters controlled by Russia, Ukraine’s defence ministry said on social media that its troops had “modified” the ship to a submarine.

Putin Moved His Nuclear Weapons

Matthew Impelli - Newsweek
Russian President Vladimir Putin moved some of his tactical nuclear weapons this week amid the war with Ukraine.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed on Tuesday that a shipment of tactical nuclear weapons from Russia was completed, the Associated Press reported. Lukashenko previously stated that the movement of nuclear weapons from Russia to Belarus is related to efforts to curb threats from Poland, a member of NATO, amid Moscow's war with Ukraine.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian and Belarusian Ministries of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.
The announcement this week comes a few months after Russia first announced it was planning to station some tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, an ally of Putin and Moscow.
In May, Lukashenko confirmed some nuclear weapons were already being sent to Belarus, prompting some concern from the United States and other Western nations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg on December 26, 2023. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed that Putin had moved some tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.  ALEXEY DANICHEV/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

"The movement of the nuclear weapons has already begun," Lukashenko said in May while meeting with reporters in Moscow, Reuters reported.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also spoke about the movement of nuclear weapons in May, saying, "The collective West is essentially waging an undeclared war against our countries." He added that Western nations are seeking "to prolong and escalate the armed conflict in Ukraine."
In June, Putin confirmed that the first shipment of tactical nuclear weapons had made it to Belarus and they were being stationed in the country. He was asked about the movement of nuclear weapons to Belarus and if Russia has considered the possibility of using them.
"Why should we threaten the whole world? I have already said that the use of extreme measures is possible in case there is a danger to Russian statehood," Putin said in response, according to the BBC, adding that it should serve as a reminder to any other nations "thinking of inflicting a strategic defeat on us."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after Putin's comments, "We have no reason to adjust our own nuclear posture."
"We don't see any indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon," Blinken said in June, adding that the United States will "continue to monitor the situation very closely and very carefully."
Russia's war with Ukraine is nearing its third year in February with fighting continuing in numerous parts of Ukraine. The United States has supplied Ukraine with several different defense assistance packages, including economic aid and military equipment.

Closing Summary

A brief run-down of some of the key developments in the Ukraine war today:

• The Ukrainian air force said it struck Russia’s Novocherkassk navy ship during an air attack on Feodosia in Crimea, controlled by Russia. Ukraine said the ship had been destroyed, but Russia said it was only damaged. Footage circulating on several Russian news outlets on Telegram showed powerful explosions and fires over a port area.
  
  
• Ukrainian army chief General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said he was not satisfied with the work of military draft offices that are responsible for mobilising troops to keep up the war effort against Russia. His comments came a day after Ukraine’s parliament published the text of a draft law containing reforms to the army draft programme, including lowering the age of men who can be mobilised to 25 from 27.
  
  
• Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s defence minister, said he wanted “to express deep gratitude” to the British government “for providing basic training to Ukraine’s combat air pilots”.
  
  
• Russia claimed that its forces had stopped Ukraine’s counteroffensive and are now pushing forward on all fronts.
  
  
• Japan’s Mitsui & Co has decided to pull its employees out of Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, citing several sources. The decision is yet another blow for the project. Fearing the backlash from US sanctions targeting the project, foreign shareholders have suspended their participation.
  
  
• The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will hold talks with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, in Moscow on Wednesday, Russia’s foreign ministry has said. The ministers plan to discuss bilateral ties as well as the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.