January 3, 2023
1. Deliberate AFU strike: one minute after midnight on January 1
63 Russian troops have been killed by a Ukrainian missile strike, Moscow confirmed on January 2. The bombardment hit a temporary vocational school used by the Russian forces in Donbass. The facility located in the city of Makeevka in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic located near Donetsk was targeted by six missiles from US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, the Defense Ministry said. Two projectiles were intercepted by air defenses, but four made it through, the statement added.
Photo: Russian emergency workers remove the rubble of vocational school destroyed by shelling in Makeyevka, Donetsk People's Republic, Russia. © Sputnik
"As a result of a strike by four missiles with high-explosive warheads on a temporary deployment point, 63 Russian servicemen were killed,” Defense Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said during a briefing on January 2. All necessary assistance and support will be provided to the families of the fallen troops, the Ministry assured.
The strike was earlier reported by the Donetsk People’s Republic’s Information Minister Daniil Bezsonov, who said the missiles targeted the building of a vocational school where the troops were stationed. It happened precisely at 0:01 AM on New Year’s night, while the servicemen were celebrating, he added.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry earlier condemned Washington for not only supplying sophisticated weapons to Kiev, but also providing the Ukrainian military with intelligence about the location of the Russian forces. It was also said that the AFU attackers used U.S. intelligence communication system called “Echelon”.
A commentator noted at the RT website:
Terry Ross: Russia must now target a US command and control centre in Kiev as it is clear to all that this strike was planned and executed by the US.
2. Russia has set up its goals for long-range Air Force in 2023
Russian long-range aviation will continue to have a role in the Special Military Operation in Ukraine in 2023 and will have to master new upgrades to the fleet, Lieutenant General Sergey Kobylash, head of the Long-range Air Command, has said on January 2. The planned operational and combat training program for this year includes “the use of airborne means of destruction, ”he added.
Russia’s long-range aviation – which is part of the country’s nuclear triad, but can also carry conventional arms – currently relies on three types of aircraft, including the Tu-95MS and Tu-160 strategic missile carrier, and the Tu-22M3 long-range bomber.
Last month, Kobylash told the Russian military’s paper Krasnaya Zvezda that most of the crews of the force have already received combat experience in the course of the Ukrainian-NATO aggression against Russia.
3. US-made HIMARS destroyed in new strikes in Ukraine
Russian forces have destroyed several US-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers and eliminated scores of Ukrainian troops along with dozens of foreign fighters in the latest series of strikes, Moscow’s Defense Ministry said on January 3.
According to the military, two launchers were destroyed at the Druzhkovka railway station in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), four Czech-made RM-70 Vampire rocket systems, over 800 shells for MLRS systems. The second pair of launchers was located near the Ukrainian-held city of Kramatorsk, and was firing at other DPR cities.
These strikes are as a symbol of Russia’s desire to destroy Ukrainian supply channels, including railroads, used to deliver NATO lethal weapons to a failed Kiev’s regime.
In addition, nine HIMARS rockets were intercepted near the frontline in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), as well as in Kherson Region, the statement clarified.
The Russian Air Force’s “precision strikes” on positions of the “foreign legion” fighting for Ukraine near Kramatorsk and Maslyakovka destroyed over 130 “foreign mercenaries,” it added.
4. Poland reacted extremely critically to Ukraine’s celebration of Bandera
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has vowed to raise the issue of Stepan Bandera’s glorification with Kiev at the first opportunity
There can be "no nuances" when it comes to the glorification of WWII Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera in Ukraine, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a press conference on January 2. Warsaw would not show any leniency to those who "do not want" to recognize "terrible crimes" committed by Ukrainian nationalists against Poles during WWII, he added.
"We are extremely critical, very, very negative towards any glorification or even reminders of Bandera," Morawiecki said, commenting on a Twitter post by the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovnaya Rada, celebrating what would have been the 114th birthday of the head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), an ultranationalist group that existed during WWII and had its own paramilitary wing, known as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
In the post, which was later deleted amid outcries from Poland, Israel and the USA, the Ukrainian Parliament cited Bandera as having said that "the complete and supreme victory of Ukrainian nationalism will be when the Russian Empire ceases to exist." The Rada then said that the modern Ukrainian Armed Forces chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, is "well aware" of Bandera’s "instructions." The general himself was featured in another tweet, pictured with a large Bandera portrait in the background.
"There can be no nuance here," Morawiecki insisted, vowing to be "very, very clear about that" the next time he got a chance to talk to Ukraine’s PM Denis Shmygal.
The Polish Prime Minister branded Bandera "an ideologist of … criminal times, the times of war" that saw "terrible Ukrainian crimes."
There will be no "leniency" for those who refuse to admit that the "terrible genocide" Poles suffered at the hands of the Ukrainian nationalists during WWII was "something unimaginable," he added.
Bandera has been officially hailed as a national hero in Ukraine since 2010. Ukrainian nationalists regularly marked his January 1st birthday with torchlit marches and massive demonstrations. Poland and Israel associate him with the mass killings of Poles and Jews committed by Ukrainian nationalists during the WWII.
In 2016, the Polish Parliament recognized the so-called Volyn Massacres as genocide in 1943 at the hands of UPA militants. In 2018, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed a bill that banned the promotion of the ideology associated with Stepan Bandera. Israel has also repeatedly called on Kiev not to glorify "war criminals or rehabilitate wartime collaborators."
Despite such criticism, Poland at the same time ranks second in supplying its active regular servicemen under the guise of ‘mercenaries’ to take part in direct combined aggression of Ukraine and NATO against Russia. So far 1,200 Poles have been killed and nearly 4,000 of them have been injured during joint Ukrainian-NATO aggression against Donbass since April 13, 2014, and later – since October 5, 2022 – against Russia.
Written by Vladimir P. Kozin
