New Year Missile & Drone Strikes Continue Across Ukraine as NATO Recognizes Scale of Conflict

Update on Russian military operations in Ukraine for January 2, 2023:

– Fighting continues around Bakhmut and across the wider Donbass region;

– Russian missile and drone strikes continue for several days now;

– Ukrainian sources claim “all” drones were downed but damage to infrastructure proves otherwise;

– Ukraine claims to have hit Russian troops with a HIMARS rocket attack;

– The attack is only in the news because it happens so infrequently;

– Russia carries out similar attacks nearly daily with its much larger number of guided-rocket launchers and ballistic missile systems;

– NATO admits Russia can fight on long-term and that Ukraine requires long-term support;

– EU begins training 1,100 Ukrainians for 2 months and plans to train up to 15,000 over the next 2+ years;

– 200-300 Ukrainian perish in fighting daily at a minimum with fighting around Bakhmut raising deaths and injuries to around 1,000 daily;

– Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterates that the West is using Ukraine as a proxy to harm Russia, a fact stated in US policy documents like RAND’s 2019 “Extending Russia” paper;

References:

BBC – Ukraine claims hundreds of Russians killed by missile attack:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe…

BBC – Ukraine must get long-term support, warns Nato chief:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe…

RAND Corporation – Extending Russia Competing from Advantageous Ground (2019):
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_re…

Bloomberg – Bloomberg – Ukrainian Troops Begin EU Training as Bloc Expands Military Role:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl…