AIR defences downed a Ukrainian drone approaching the Russian city of Voronezh, the regional government said in a statement on Monday.
‘Last night, air defences detected and downed a small reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle approaching Voronezh, which had been launched from Ukraine,’ the statement read.
The regional government reported that there were no casualties or damage and the situation remained under control.
Earlier on Monday, a Ukrainian drone attacked a power installation in the Klimovsky District, Governor of the Bryansk Region Alexander Bogomaz wrote in his Telegram account.
‘A Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle attacked the Klimovsky District this morning. Nobody was injured. A power installation was damaged. As a result, there is no electricity in the settlement.’
Rescue services are working at the scene.
The Ukrainian military’s shelling damaged a powerline in Donetsk, leaving nearly 16,000 customers without power, the Donetsk People’s Republic’s (DPR) mission to the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination said on Monday.
A total of 84 transformer substations and 33 boiler houses also lost power, leaving 15,700 customers without electricity.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces fired several 155mm munitions at the western part of Donetsk on Monday. They shelled the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) 14 times in three hours on Monday, the DPR mission to the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination reported.
According to the mission, the Ukrainian military shelled the city of Donetsk five times between 12.10pm and 3.10pm, firing 25 NATO-standard 155mm artillery shells.
Makeyevka came under Ukrainian fire twice and Gorlovka came under attack three times. Twenty-two 152mm and 155mm munitions were fired at the two cities. The Ukrainian army also attacked Panteleimonovka, Yasinovataya, Yakovlevka and Mineralnoye, firing a total of twenty-four 155mm munitions.
The Ukrainian military fired nearly 400 munitions at the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in the past day, the DPR mission to the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination said on Monday.
‘The Ukrainian Armed Forces fired 397 munitions in the past 24 hours, using Grad multiple rocket launchers, as well as 122mm, 152mm and 155mm artillery,’ the mission said in a statement on Telegram.
Five settlements came under fire. The attacks killed a civilian and left another five wounded, damaging 28 homes and 19 civilian infrastructure facilities.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces also shelled DPR territory twice on Sunday night.
According to the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination they fired five NATO-standard 155mm munitions at the Kirovsky District of Donetsk and another six 155mm munitions at Gorlovka on Sunday night.
Gorlovka Mayor Ivan Prikhodko said earlier that one of the city’s residential areas had come under fire. He added that a shelling attack had left 1,455 households in a nearby settlement without power.
The Ukrainian military’s shelling also left a civilian wounded in the city of Donetsk.
,The DPR mission to the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination said on Monday: ‘A man born in 1988 suffered wounds in the Kirovsky District of Donetsk.’
The Ukrainian Armed Forces heavily shelled the DPR territory, including Donetsk, on January 1st.
Meanwhile, the Lugansk People’s Republic’s (LPR) mission to the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination reported that the Ukrainian army had fired HIMARS rockets at Chmyrovka, Rubezhnoye and Svatovo.
‘The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 50 troops in fighting against the LPR People’s Militia in the past day,’ their spokesman Ivan Filiponenko said on Monday.
‘The enemy suffered considerable manpower and equipment losses as a result of the LPR People’s Militia’s offensive activities. Up to 50 troops were killed,’ he said in a statement posted on the LPR Militia’s Telegram channel.
According to Filiponenko, LPR forces destroyed two tanks, three armoured personnel carriers, an artillery mount and six special motor vehicles.
Meanwhile, explosions occurred in Ukraine’s Nikolayev and Cherkasy regions on Monday, the Klimenko Times news outlet reported, without providing details.
Air raid sirens went off in the three Ukrainian regions, including Cherkasy and Nikolayev.
Sunday night/Monday morning’s strikes damaged energy facilities in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said earlier on Monday.
‘Last night’s strikes damaged energy infrastructure facilities in the capital. Emergency power outages are being introduced in the city. Accordingly, some heat supply facilities are without electricity,’ he wrote on Telegram, adding that water supplies continued normally.
Air raid sirens went off in half of Ukraine’s region. According to Ukrainian media outlets, explosions were heard in various parts of Kiev on Monday night.
The Russian Armed Forces carried out a high-precision strike on Ukrainian defence industry sites involved in the production of combat drones on December 31, Russian Defence Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday.
‘On December 31, 2022, the Russian Armed Forces employed long-range high-precision air-launched weapons to target Ukrainian defence industry facilities involved in the production of combat unmanned aerial vehicles that are used to carry out terrorist attacks on Russia,’ he noted.
‘The move has thwarted the Kiev regime’s plans to conduct terrorist attacks against Russia in the near future,’ Konashenkov stressed.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is trying to ‘get Russia out’ of his country before the West gets tired of the conflict, Former Special Assistant for National Security to United States President George W. Bush, Michael Allen, said in a press interview.
‘I think that Zelensky knows that he has to keep his foot on the gas in order to go ahead and get Russia out of his territory before the West gets tired of funding his campaign,’ he said.
According to the expert, Zelensky ‘wants to signal, especially to the Europeans, that he’s willing to do peace talks eventually’ to avoid criticism over a prolonged conflict.
This is why Zelensky suggested ‘a peace summit’, Allen added.
- Russia’s Gazprom gas giant exceeded its obligations in terms of annual gas supplies to China in 2022, the company’s CEO Alexey Miller said on Monday.
‘Gazprom keeps increasing gas exports to China via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline. In 2022, gas supplies regularly exceeded daily contracted amounts based on China’s request.
‘As a result, we exceeded our yearly obligations. Moreover, following a request from our Chinese colleagues, we raised daily supplies to the level set in next year’s contract on December 31, that is, several days before the due date.
‘That said, on January 1st, 2023, Gazprom reached a completely new level in terms of gas supplies to China,’ the company’s statement quoted Miller as saying.
‘The prospects for global gas consumption growth are mostly associated with Asia, primarily with China. We are strengthening our positions in this area,’ the Gazprom CEO added.
- A draft law on the use of alternative kinds of gas in additional to natural gas for more efficient gas supplies to regions has been prepared by Andrey Kutepov, head of the committee of the Federation Council (upper house of the Russian parliament).
A copy of the document sent to the government for the receipt of the opinion was seen by Russian news outlet TASS.
‘The draft was developed for purposes of implementing the list of assignments of Russian President Vladimir Putin on development of alternative eco-friendly energy resources, an action plan (roadmap) of implementing a socially focused and cost efficient system of gas infrastructure development and gas supplies to Russian regions, and further for the expansion of the domestic gas market and guaranteed supplies of liquefied petroleum gas, liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas to the domestic market to meet utility needs of the population,’ the explanatory note to the document reads.
Current legislation regulates the procedure of supply and use ‘of exclusively natural gas’ for purposes of gas supplies to households and industrial plants.
‘At the same time, the procedure of using alternative kinds of gas for gas supplies purposes is not determined legislatively,’ the lawmaker said.
‘Gas infrastructure development with natural gas use is not cost efficient in hard-to-reach areas and Russian regions without gas distribution networks or poor development of these networks.
‘This task can be solved more efficiently with huge savings of federal and local budgets through the use of alternative energy sources as liquefied petroleum gas, liquefied natural gas, and compressed natural gas,’ the draft document indicates.
