Russian Attacks, Ukraine Counterattacks

"We have information that Russia is planning a prolonged attack by Shaheds [exploding drones]."

"[The goal is to break Ukraine's resistance by] exhausting our people, [our] air defence, our energy."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"Russia's air and missile campaign against Ukraine is likely not generating the Kremlin's desired information effects among Russia's nationalists."

"Such profound military failures will continue to complicate Putin's efforts to appease the Russian pro-war community and retain the dominant narrative in the domestic information space."

Institute for the Study of War

Local residents gather near a residential building as a critical power infrastructure object burns after a Russian drone attack, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 19, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

 

In Makiivka, a town located in the eastern Donetsk region partly occupied by Russian troops, emergency crews using cranes remove huge chunks of concrete in the rubble of a building. New Year's saw a Ukrainian rocket attack on a repurposed vocational school, used more latterly under its Russian occupation as a troop barrack. Russia admits to the death of some 63 Russian conscripts, while Ukraine officials put the number at 400 Russian soldiers whose lives were destroyed. According to Russian-language media those who died were mobilized reservists.

 

A critical power infrastructure object burns after a Russian drone attack, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 19, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

Ukrainian forces had fired rockets with the use of a  HIMARS multiple launch system, supplied to them from the United States. This became one of the deadliest attacks on Kremlin forces. Ukraine's Strategic Communications Directorate armed forces on Sunday announced the death of 400 mobilized Russian soldiers. Along with roughly 300 other soldiers who sustained serious injury in the devastating attack. 

 

A satellite image dated December 20 illustrated the vocational education centre standing in good condition. A January 2 image reflected a building destroyed to rubble. At its end, Russia is dependent on the Shahed drones it gets from Iran, cheap and effective in instilling terror among Ukrainian troops and civilians both. Ukraine itself is advancing in drone technology, leading to a trend that may result in the world's first autonomous fighting robots.

 

According to experts in the field, Russia or Ukraine may begin deploying them before too long. The drones that Russia is currently dependent on in its continual assaults against Ukraine's towns and cities, effectively targeting energy depots and lines, are being shot down successfully by Ukraine. Russia's use of the drones appear twofold; to exhaust Ukraine's air defences, and to deprive Ukrainian citizens of their heating source through the long, cold winter months as they target the nation's energy grid. 

] Firefighters work at a site of a critical power infrastructure object, which was hit during Russia's drones attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, in this handout picture released December 19, 2022. Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS