► 63 Russian soldiers killed in a strike near Donetsk
Russia recognized on Monday January 2 the death of 63 of its soldiers in Ukraine, killed in a strike in separatist territory in the east of the country. These are the heaviest losses in a single attack admitted by Moscow since the start of the invasion, while the army has only rarely given an assessment of its offensive in Ukraine or communicated on its losses.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the 63 servicemen were killed in the explosion of “four missiles” fired by Himars systems, a weapon supplied by the United States to Ukrainian forces.
According to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, who did not specify the date of the strike, these missiles hit “a temporary deployment center” of the Russian army in Makiivka, a town under Russian occupation located east of the separatist stronghold of Donetsk.
► New air attack on kyiv after a deadly New Year
A new airstrike targeted kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, at dawn on Monday, after a New Year’s Day marked by dozens of Russian strikes that left at least four people dead in the capital and elsewhere in the country.
“Stay in the shelters! », asked Serhiï Popko, head of the military administration of the city of kyiv, around 1 am. The authorities then indicated that “20 aerial targets were shot down”.
“The air defense is working… Fragments of balconies and windows of a skyscraper were damaged in the Desnyanskyi district”, in the northeast of the capital, continued Serhiï Popko. The alert was lifted about three hours later.
► 45.5% drop in gas exports outside the former Soviet bloc in 2022
Gazprom’s gas exports, excluding countries of the former Soviet bloc, fell by 45.5% in 2022, according to results announced on Monday. A figure that illustrates the sharp drop in Russian hydrocarbon deliveries to Europe in the wake of Western sanctions against the offensive in Ukraine.
In a statement, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said the group exported 100.9 billion cubic meters of gas in 2022 to the countries of “the far stranger”, a term not including former Soviet republics. In 2021, Gazprom had exported 185.1 billion cubic meters to these same countries.