War on 313: Russia admits to losing 63 soldiers because Ukraine shot HIMARS into the garrison

Moscow [Russia], January 3: Russia's Defense Ministry said on Monday that 63 Russian soldiers were killed in an attack by Ukrainian forces on their garrison in the Donetsk region.
Photos posted online show the building, which used to be a vocational school in the city of Makiivka, collapsed and smoked. The Russian Defense Ministry said that this place was hit by four rockets from the US-made high mobility artillery rocket system ( HIMARS ), in addition to two that were intercepted.
Earlier, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said Russia lost up to 400 soldiers in the area, in addition to about 300 wounded, although pro-Russian officials said the figure was exaggerated.
Some online military bloggers in Russia, with hundreds of thousands of followers, attributed the heavy damage to the storage of ammunition in the same building as the barracks, even though the commanders know that this place is within rocket range of Ukraine.
A Russian military blogger named Rybar said more than 100 people were injured in the attack at the building, and that about 6,000 people and ammunition were stored there.
One source said the building had been home to partially mobilized soldiers since September.
German Defense Minister Criticized
According to AFP, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht was criticized for a video in Berlin celebrating the New Year, which she posted on social networks .
In the video, Ms Lambrecht makes it clear that despite the sound of fireworks exploding, she recalls the end of the year with "war between Europe".
The conflict in Ukraine has led to "a lot of special experiences" and the opportunity to "have many meetings with great and interesting people", the official said in the video posted on his personal Instagram account.
According to the Tagesspiegel , Ms Lambrecht's New Year's speech made the war sound like "an interesting professional experience". Bild newspaper also criticized that the one-minute message taken by Ms Lambrecht on her mobile phone "embarrassed" Germany.
At a regular press conference, a German Defense Ministry spokesman declined to comment on the "private footage" presented by Ms Lambrecht and said "no official resources" were used to produce the footage. there.
Ukraine intercepted all UAVs?
On January 2, Russia continued to launch attacks against the energy infrastructure of the capital Kyiv and its vicinity.
On Telegram , Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said the entire air defense system was activated at the time of Russia's latest attack.
After that, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced that it shot down 100% of Iranian -made UAVs, including 39 Shahed UAVs, as well as Russian cruise missiles in Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia provinces on the second day of the new year. Of these, 22 UAVs were disabled in Kyiv.
And Ukrainian President VolodymyrZelensky added that the country's military disabled 45 Shahed UAVs on the first day of the new year (January 1).
Russia has not commented on Kyiv's statement. TASS reported that Russian air defense systems shot down a Ukrainian UAV that was approaching the city of Voronezh in southwestern Russia. There were no casualties in this incident.
Russia and Ukraine fight for highways
In an intelligence update on Monday, the British Ministry of Defense said that over the past five days, Russian and Ukrainian forces were probably fighting fiercely for control of the P66 highway, north of the town of Kremina in Luhansk. where Russia is stationed.
The Guardian newspaper quoted information from the British Ministry of Defenseanalyzing that the P66 was the lifeline in the northern part of the Donbass from Belgorod of Russia. Since October 2022, this road has been continuously hit by artillery fire from Ukraine.
"If Ukraine is able to obtain P66, this could further weaken Russia's Kreminnadefense capabilities," according to the report.
Gloomy global economic forecast
For the majority of the global economy, 2023 will be a difficult year as the main engines of global growth, the US, Europe, and China , are all down," said the CEO. Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva of the International Monetary Fund (OMF).
Georgieva warned that 2023 will be even more difficult than the previous year. "For the first time in 40 years, China's economic growth rate in 2022 is likely to be similar or lower than global growth," she said.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping in his New Year's speech declared that "China is willing to strengthen political cooperation with Russia", and to enhance cooperation between the militaries of the two countries.
Bilateral relations are at the "best period in history, standing up to any test", Xi said. "We share similar views on the causes, directions and logic of the transformation taking place in the global geopolitical landscape," he said.
Source: ThanhNien Newspaper