Sitrep for December 31 – January 2

According to pro-Russian sources (first, RIA Novosti and TASS [Russian state-owned news agencies], citing sources of the so-called DPR, and then, the Rybar Telegram channel wrote about this), during the night of Jan. 1 (according to some sources, in the first minute after midnight) Russian positions in Makiivka were attacked. Already in the afternoon of Jan. 1, Ukrainian sources reported a strike on a vocational school, housing mobilized soldiers. Judging by the photographs, the building is almost completely destroyed.

Reportedly, two or three HIMARS rocket pods were used (that is, 12-18 rockets were fired). The reported number of killed mobilized soldiers varies from several dozens to hundreds. The scale of the incident can be assessed more precisely later after the publication of obituaries.

The obituaries that appeared in the last days of 2022 confirm the strike on the Southern Military District command post in the Kherson region that we reported on earlier: a number of high-ranking officers were actually killed then.

During the strikes on Kherson on Dec. 31, a 13-year-old boy came under fire twice: first time, in the street, and then, in the hospital, where he was taken for medical assistance. As a result of the strike on this hospital, one person was killed.

In the afternoon of Dec. 31, a massive missile strike was launched on Kyiv. One person was killed, and 20 others injured. Later, critical infrastructure was struck, one more person injured. Twenty-two aerial targets (missiles and drones) were reportedly shot down over the city.

On Dec. 31, it became known about an outrageous war crime apparently committed by the mercenaries of the Wagner Group near Bakhmut. During a mortar attack, they used a heavily wounded Ukrainian soldier as a human shield by placing him near their dugout so that a Ukrainian drone would not give fire directions or drop a grenade.