14:29
Lula for peace
Brazilian President Lula called for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine before taking the oath on Jan. 1 after meeting officials from the two countries who were attending the inauguration ceremony.
14:17
We know more about the prisoners exchanged yesterday
A new exchange of prisoners took place yesterday, as we informed you earlier. Russia has handed over 140 Ukrainian soldiers to Ukraine and the Russian Defense Ministry said it has returned 82 soldiers. According to the Ukrainian President’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak, some of the 132 Ukrainian men and 8 Ukrainian women were fighting in Mariupol, or on the Island of Snakes.
14:00
The cynicism of war
If the information, which could not be independently cross-checked by journalists on the ground, reveals the terrible cynicism of combatants who can no longer bear the war.
Andriy Nebytov, the chief of police in Kyiv, published a photo of one of the drones shot down in the skies of the Ukrainian capital last night, according to the Kyiv Post. The metal says “Happy New Year” in Russian.
13:43
Before the New Year hits targeted drone factories
The Russian army claims that the strikes, which hit several Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, the previous day, before the New Year, targeted drone production facilities to thwart planned “terrorist attacks”.
“On December 31, 2022, Russian forces conducted a long-range precision airstrike against Ukrainian defense industrial facilities involved in the manufacture of attack drones used to conduct terrorist attacks against Russia,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily report.
“The plans of the Kiev regime to carry out terrorist attacks against Russia in the near future have been foiled,” he said.
Moscow often classifies the Ukrainian army’s operations on Russian territory or at its facilities in Ukraine as “acts of terrorism”.
12:54
Putin was on medication when he launched the invasion, Danish intelligence says
The Danish newspaper Berlingske met “Joakim”, the man who runs the Danish secret service that collects information about Russia. According to this man, the Russian President was under the effects of cancer treatment. “Melomaniacism is one of the well-known side effects of the type of hormone treatment he was receiving. I can’t say for sure, but I think it influenced his decisions when he started the war in Ukraine,” he said. “He also had a moon-shaped face earlier in the year, which is another known side effect of the same type of hormone treatment,” he later adds.
The Danish secret service FE originally assumed that the Russians would win the war in two weeks. “And they weren’t far away,” Joakim continues. It wasn’t because of the Russian military’s poor logistics or corruption that the lightning-fast takeover of Kiev failed. It’s a mixture of unpreparedness and tactical mistakes on the part of Putin, who got bogged down in details and took the first humiliations of his troops personally. Presumably, according to “Joakim”, in part because his treatment increased his tendencies to “megalomania”.
12:36
Pope Francis calls for peace
At his New Year’s Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis wanted to pray for the victims of the war. “Let us pray to our Mother in a special way for her sons and daughters who are suffering and no longer have the strength to pray, and for our many brothers and sisters around the world who are victims of war and are spending these festivals in darkness and cold, in poverty and fear, immersed in violence and indifference,” he said. He urged Catholics to actively work for peace and “not to waste time glued to a keyboard in front of a computer screen.”
Portal/Guglielmo Mangiapane
12:28
Many Russians wounded in Lugansk
Last week, around 350 wounded Russian soldiers were taken to a hospital in Bilovodsk in the disputed Lugansk region, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It is also said that on December 30 up to 160 inmates were injured and 10 units of various types of enemy military equipment were destroyed in the Zaporizhia region.
11:35
A young woman succumbs to her injuries.
A 22-year-old woman who was injured in shelling in Khmelnitsky yesterday died in hospital, the region’s military chief Serhiy Gamalii said on Telegram. Seven other people were hospitalized after the Russian attack on Khmelnytsky yesterday.
11:31
Moscow is slowly running out of precision missiles
Vadym Skibitskyi, spokesman for the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, told Ukrainian TV that Russia was running out of Iskander ballistic missiles and that “the number of Kh-101, Kh-555 is decreasing.
11:13
A hospital hit in Kherson
A children’s hospital in Kherson was hit by a Russian explosion, according to Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik, who posts photos on Twitter. Two children were injured, she said.
11:10
Of the 45 drones destroyed tonight
Details of the 45 suicide drones shot down by Ukrainian air defenses have been provided. Thirteen were destroyed before midnight and 32 after the symbolic transition of the New Year.
10:43
Russia is strengthening its army
A decree issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of August came into force this morning. It increases the number of Russian armed forces. According to the text of the document, the workforce is set at 2,39,758 people with 1,150,628 soldiers, to which 695,000 soldiers will be added under contract.
10:35
Boris Johnson still supports Ukraine
Boris Johnson is “more convinced than ever” that Vladimir Putin will lose the war in Ukraine. In a short clip shared on Twitter, the former prime minister said he was “confident” things would improve in 2023, adding that the economy was already starting to recover.
He made no mention of his departure from Downing Street.
10:10
Kiev subway obstructed by rockets
Metro services were disrupted after rocket fragments were found near the Livoberezhna metro station. The demining brigade intervened and traffic was able to resume around 11 a.m. local time (10 a.m. French time).
09:20
There was an exchange of prisoners yesterday
Another exchange of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners took place yesterday at an undisclosed location. Ukrainian MP Dmytro Lubinets, human rights defender in parliament, published photos on Telegram showing the emotions of some Ukrainians to return to their country. About 200 men were reportedly exchanged, according to Portal.
Dmytro Lubinets by telegram/via Portal
09:05
US ‘convinced’ of Ukraine victory
“Russia coldly and cowardly attacked Ukraine in the early hours of the New Year. But Putin still doesn’t seem to understand that Ukrainians are made of iron. America is adamant that Ukraine will win in 2023. Slava Ukraine! ” wrote on Twitter, while the first explosions sounded in the sky of Kyiv after midnight, the United States Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink.
A few hours earlier, she had accused Russia of carrying out “indiscriminate attacks” against the Ukrainian population “for the third time this holiday week” and “hitting houses, hotels and other civilian facilities”.
08:50
Damage in nine regions
Russian attacks — 31 rockets, 12 airstrikes and more than 70 attacks from multiple rocket launchers, according to the Ukrainian General Staff — fired at Ukraine yesterday have destroyed at least nine regions: around Chernihiv, Sumy, Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Donetsk, Zaporiyya, Mykolayiv and Kherson.
08:35
Russia wants to establish itself in Sri Lanka
The new Russian ambassador to Sri Lanka, Levan Dzhagaryan, gave an interview to Ceylon Today. The diplomat, who worked in Iran for 12 years, hails “the forthcoming deal between Rosatom” and the small Asian country to “help Sri Lanka build two mini-nuclear power plants for official use. Each station would have a capacity of 55 MG,” he explains.
08:18
“No one supports the war,” says a Russian tennis champion
World No. 5 Aryna Sabalenka believes banning Russian and Belarusian players from Wimbledon last year was in vain. “We are just athletes doing our sport. That’s all. We don’t play politics,” she told the Melbourne Age newspaper on the sidelines of the Adelaide tournament. “If we could all do something, we would, but we have no control,” said the 24-year-old, noting that the decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players changed nothing. “No one supports the war,” added the 2021 Wimbledon semi-finalist, who hopes to return to the London turf in 2023.
08:00
The war keeps killing
The Ukrainian Armed Forces on January 1 claim to have “eliminated”, ie killed or injured, 106,720 Russian soldiers since Moscow launched the offensive, ie 760 more than yesterday. This count cannot be verified and neither country gives a real estimate of their losses, which are significant.
07:47
A plan of massive strikes
Ukrainian army claims to have destroyed 45 drones on New Year’s Eve. If the information is confirmed, it will show the scale of the attacks that the Russians wanted on that symbolic night.
07:43
Macron vows to help Ukrainians ‘unconditionally’ ‘until victory’
“We will be together to build a just and lasting peace. Count on France and count on Europe,” he said in his televised address.
07:36
Zelensky promises his country will keep fighting until “victory”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has promised that his country will continue fighting until it “victories” Russia and returns all Moscow-held territories to Kyiv.
“We are fighting and we will keep fighting. For this word: victory”, he explained in his speech on the occasion of the new year and said he hoped that it would be “the year of the return (…) of our countries”.
07:33
23 strikes intercepted in Kyiv
The military administration of the city of Kyiv said 23 “air objects” launched by Russia were destroyed after midnight. Fragments of a missile destroyed by Ukrainian air defense systems damaged a car in central Kyiv, but there were no apparent injuries or casualties, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
07:30
Explosions between midnight and 2am
Many explosions were heard in Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine, and air raid sirens sounded across the country for the first two hours of this new year. As the sirens wailed, residents of Kyiv shouted from their balconies: “Glory to Ukraine! Honor the heroes! Witnesses told Portal.
The attacks took place minutes after the Ukrainian President’s New Year’s message.
07:25
Zelenskyy assures that 2023 will be the year of “victory”.
07:20
Hi
Welcome to our live about the war in Ukraine and its aftermath on this first day of 2023.