Jan 2: E-Stories
Day677 RUattacks KhersonOdesaKharkivLviv CombatAssessment BehindLines InRussia Allies A&P Avdeeva Wieslander Davis ISW Scherba Zelensky Ukrinform Bockmann AmbJapan Pichler Finley
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Dec 31st: Maria Avdeeva reporting from Kharkiv. The strikes didn’t stop these volunteers from raising money for the troops.
Stories we’re following…
Oleksandr Scherba: “Odesa. People sing “Chervona Kalyna” after being attacked by the “shahed” drones on New Year’s night. The Russian-Iranian axis of evil can go fuck itself.”
Overnight, Russia tried to disrupt new years evening by launching a record number of 90 Shahed drones towards Ukraine. Air defense shot down 87 of them. In addition some S-300, Kh-31P and Kh-59 missiles were launched which inflicted damage in the northern regions.
During the day, Ukrainian air defense shot down 9 Shahed drones out of 10 launched. In additional, a single launched Kh-59 was shot down over the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Enemy drone attack on Odesa: One killed, three hospitalized. A 15-year-old boy was killed and seven people wounded after falling debris from one of 87 downed drones hit a residential building in the city of Odesa, the head of the region’s military administration, Oleh Kiper, said. Ukraine’s military has said that an overnight Russian drone attack on Odesa targeted port infrastructure, and that a fire had broken out in one of the port terminals as a result of a strike.
“The enemy’s clear priority remains the port infrastructure of Odesa. A large number of drones were directed from the sea to the coastal zone,” Ukraine’s southern military command said on Telegram.
In Lviv, Russian attacks severely damaged a museum dedicated to Roman Shukhevych, a controversial Ukrainian nationalist and military commander who fought for Ukrainian independence during World War II. University buildings in the town of Dubliany were also damaged, although no casualties were reported. The Russians also attacked the Sumy Oblast during the night.
President Zelensky’s New Year’s Eve Address:
“Ukrainians are stronger than cold and darkness. Ukrainians are stronger than intrigues, falsehoods, psyops, pain, despondency, despair, and discord.”
Combat Situation Update
War update Ukrinform: 38 Russian attacks repelled in four sectors. Ukraine’s Defense Forces have repelled 38 enemy attacks in the Kupiansk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Zaporizhzhia directions in the past 24 hours.
General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on Facebook that
"There were 56 combat engagements over the past 24 hours. The enemy launched 1 missile strike and 81 airstrikes, including using Shahed-136/131 loitering munitions, and struck the positions of our troops and populated areas 37 times with multiple-launch rocket systems."
Ukrainian soldiers repelled Russian attacks on the Kupiansk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Zaporizhzhia fronts. Furthermore, Ukraine's General Staff reported that "the enemy has persisted in its intention to drive Ukrainian units from their footholds on the Dnipro River's left bank".
"The enemy mounted 18 unsuccessful assaults over the past 24 hours, with Ukrainian forces continuing to hold their positions and inflicting significant losses on the Russian occupying army," the statement said.
ISW Special Report: The Lands Ukraine Must Liberate
A Ukraine strong enough to deter and defeat any future Russian aggression with an economy strong enough to prosper without large amounts of foreign aid is the only outcome of Russia’s war that the US and the West should accept.
Trusting Russian promises of good behavior would be foolish. Leaving Ukraine’s economy badly damaged would create a long-term and large drain on Western finances.
Discussions about pressing Ukraine to trade land the Russians now occupy for a ceasefire or armistice have garnered attention recently, based on rumors of Kremlin interest in negotiations of some sort.
These discussions have thus far largely focused on the supposed intransigence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who, it is argued, must be pressed to accept that Ukraine must cede some of its territory.
That argument ignores the question that should be central to any such discussion:
What are the concrete military, economic, and financial consequences that these territorial sacrifices would have for Ukraine’s long-term security and economic viability or for the future financial burden they would impose on the supporters of an independent Ukraine?
The serious evaluation of this question shows that there are real military and economic reasons for Ukraine to try to liberate all of the territory Russia now occupies and that the current lines cannot be the basis for any settlement remotely acceptable to Ukraine or the West.
The Telegraph: As missile supplies from the United States dry up, experts warn that Ukraine’s air defences will be unable to repel all of Russia's winter bombing campaign. It will be forced to choose which targets to defend.
Behind the Lines
The Ukrainian IT Army has halted the operation of payment terminals in Russia by attacking Evotor, the largest manufacturer of online registers, reported the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine on Telegram
"A New Year cyber-present for Russians: the IT Army suspended the operation of payment terminals.
The largest manufacturer of online registers Evotor has not been working since yesterday. Every attempt by Russians to pay for New Year presents by cars results in failure.
The New Year’s prime time in Russia has become a real collapse. Russians are not able to pay by card in shops, cafes, hairdressing salons or any other businesses which use payment terminals. It may cause serious damage to the aggressor’s economy."
Dark connections: How Belarusian airlines became the main allies of Serbian arms dealers
Belarusian cargo air carriers are painted in all colors and know all the tricks and pitfalls of transporting weapons and ammunition. When it comes to smuggling schemes, they are second to none. I like to work with them".
This is the testimony of one of the leading Serbian arms dealers who says that in the past years he used the services of Belarusian airlines more than 40 times to transport weapons and ammunition. And he was not the only one - on the contrary.
A group of journalists from Serbia and Belarus investigated the links between Serbian arms dealers and Belarusian cargo airlines. It was found that Belarusian cargo companies were often used to deliver Serbian weapons and ammunition around the world.
During a year of research, journalists located and analyzed in detail more than 100 flights of Belarusian airlines that took off from Serbian airports loaded with weapons, transporting thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition to different locations.
Weapons and ammunition produced in Serbian defense industry factories are massively used in numerous conflicts around the world. The defense industry of Serbia has a tradition of 180 years, and it consists of about 250 state-owned and privately owned legal entities engaged in the production and distribution of weapons and ammunition.
Serbian weapons and ammunition factories produce extremely high-quality products that are competitive in price on the always unpredictable and uncertain world market. Thanks to their abilities, cunning, willingness to take risks, through a strange labyrinth of connections and transactions, often with dubious transport routes, private Serbian arms dealers exported and are exporting large quantities of weapons and ammunition, unfortunately, often where they shouldn't - into the hands of Islamic terrorists and various militant groups, as well as to regions that are under an embargo on the import of weapons and ammunition. [continue]
Michelle Wiese Bockmann: “Plans by Maersk to resume Red Sea transits thrown in to chaos by attack on Maersk Hangzhou by Houthis & fatal consequences. Gunvor Maersk, Maersk Tukang, Ebba Maersk, Maersk Londrina, Maersk Utah, Maersk Genoa, Gjertrud Maersk, shown here pausing or recalibrating voyages.”
Meanwhile in Russia
Putin’s New Year’s Day address: Putin said that a series of Ukrainian missile strikes on the Russian border city of Belgorod that killed 20 people and wounded 111 was “a terrorist act” that would not go unpunished and promised more strikes on Ukrainian targets, Reuters reports.
Speaking at a meeting with servicemen at a military hospital in Moscow, Putin said that the strikes, which came amid intensified Russian air assaults against Ukrainian cities Kyiv and Kharkiv, “will not go unpunished”.
Putin said that Russia would continue to strike “sensitive” military targets in Ukraine. Russia denies Western and Ukrainian accusations that it targets civilian infrastructure.
In a wide-ranging conversation with the servicemen, Putin said that the course of the war in Ukraine was changing in Russia’s favour, and that Moscow hoped to end the war, but only on its own terms.
Putin’s traditional new year address delivered on Sunday made only a passing reference to the war in Ukraine, a sharp contrast to last year’s speech.
Ukrainian cyber experts hacked an ISP in the Russian Federation and launched Putin's truly truthful address. Hackers, probably related to the SBU, hacked the large Internet provider Siberian Bear. So, in seven regions of the Russian Federation from Saratov to Novosibirsk, instead of Putin's address to the beat of chimes, they watched a video that could actually be written by the Kremlin dictator: there was talk of great losses, crazy spending on war, migration policy, and much more.
O.m.g. Snappy tunes. Note the authentic new year’s wishes. Video brought to you by Julia Davis.
Russian gas exports collapse to 1985 levels, reports the Moscow Times. At the end of 2023, the gas monopoly sold about 69 billion cubic meters of gas for export - the lowest volume since 1985, according to Reuters calculations.
Compared to 2022 (100.9 billion cubic meters), the volume of gas pumped abroad decreased by another third, and if compared to pre-war levels - three times. Supplies to Europe fell to 28 billion cubic meters - the level of the second half of the 1970s. China purchased a record 23 billion cubic meters through the Power of Siberia pipeline this year. This, however, compensated for only one-eighth of the former exports to the European Union (180 billion cubic meters).
The threat of expanding Western sanctions with the blacklisting of the Moscow Exchange, which will inevitably be followed by the cessation of exchange trading in the dollar and euro, again worries participants in the Russian foreign exchange market. Brokers, one after another, are introducing restrictions on foreign exchange transactions for clients, fearing that the Moscow Exchange will repeat the fate of the St. Petersburg Exchange, where $3 billion of client money is stuck after US sanctions.
Allied Support
Imports of diamonds from Russia to EU banned from today. On January 1, a complete ban on direct imports of non-industrial natural and synthetic diamonds and diamond jewelry from Russia to the European Union came into force.
"Finland and its people continue to strongly support Ukraine. Our decisions at the national level, such as increasing production capacity for heavy ammunition, allow us to support Ukraine in the long term," Prime Minister of Finland Petteri Orpo said.
Ambassador of Japan in Ukraine wished Ukraine a happy new year. “We are very grateful to the people and government of Ukraine for all the support you give us!”
The Government of Norway has decided to allow direct sales of weapons and defense products from the Norwegian defense industry to the defense authorities of Ukraine. This policy change took effect today.
Zelensky, Trudeau discuss security in first call of 2024. President Zelensky discussed security with Prime Minister Trudeau during a phone call, Zelensky wrote on Facebook on Jan 1. Both leaders agreed to start a bilateral dialogue regarding security guarantees and discussed preparation for the fourth Peace Formula meeting of advisors in Davos, Switzerland, at the end of January.
Anna Wieslander: Open Letter to the President Biden
As we enter 2024, we must ask ourselves; what more can the West do to make Ukraine win the war against Russia? In this open letter to POTUS we, more than 200 experts, politicians, military officers and intellectuals propose the follwing:
✅Lift the restrictions on the use of weapons supplied by the #US, and call on the coalition member countries to do likewise, so that the Ukrainian army can neutralise military structures and equipment, ammunition and fuel depots, and military production facilities deep inside enemy territory.
✅The failure of certain Western companies to comply with the embargo on the supply of military or dual-use technologies to Russia is in our view particularly serious.
✅It requires a very firm response, which could consist of the creation within #NATO of a committee that would be responsible for ensuring full compliance with the ban on the export of any sensitive technology to countries representing a real or potential threat to the free world.
✅Without a shift to a war economy on the part of all Western countries, and the increase in arms procurement that this implies, Moscow’s strategy of buying time and banking on the fatigue of governments and public opinion is likely to pay off.
‼️We cannot allow that to happen.
Unforgettable stories: our 10 favourite longreads from 2023—Ukrainska Pravda
Ukrainska Pravda has made a collection of the 10 favourite longreads from 2023. The stories range from eyewitness accounts to stunning and courageous acts by Ukrainian military personnel.
This heart-wrenching story delves into the aftermath of a Russian airstrike in Izium, Kharkiv Oblast, where the Perehon family loses seven members. The narrative follows Vitalii Perehon's struggles, from grappling with fragmented remains to navigating bureaucratic hurdles for a proper burial. Beyond the personal tragedy, the story emphasises the broader human cost of war and advocates for remembrance. It encapsulates the emotional journey of a grieving father, shedding light on the devastating impact on Ukrainian families entangled in the war.
The Red Binder
