The Russian military is on course to lose 500,000 personnel within the next year, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence. The MoD tweeted: “The average daily number of Russian casualties in Ukraine has risen by almost 300 during the course of 2023. If the numbers continue at the current rate over the next year, Russia will have lost over half a million personnel in Ukraine.”
The UK’s Ministry of Defence says Russia is continuing to struggle to establish air superiority over Ukraine. Three Russian combat jets were shot down just before Christmas and that affected ground forces’ tactical objectives later in the month, the MoD said. It added that Russia has been increasing its aerial strikes in recent days “but at a lower level than before the shootdowns”.
A Russian missile strike killed 11 people and injured 10 in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, the governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk region said. Five of the dead were children. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said the attack “quite simply targeted ordinary, private homes”.
