Hostilities have already resumed on Sunday January 8 in Ukraine. The 36-hour unilateral ceasefire decreed by Vladimir Putin from 10 a.m. Friday to midnight Saturday, Orthodox Christmas Day, has hardly been respected. The Ukrainians have accused Moscow of declaring a fictitious ceasefire, while the Russians claim to have been forced to return fire. Westerners had denounced Moscow’s “hypocrisy”.
- Nearly 150 strikes in the Sumy region
In the Sumy region alone, in northeastern Ukraine, the local administration reported in the early evening of more than a hundred bombardments and strikes during the day on Sunday. “The Russian army carried out 144 strikes during the day”, in particular on the localities of Esmansk, Novoslobid, Myropil, Bilopol and Khotyn which were “under fire”, wrote the head of the regional administration Dmytro Zhivitskiï on the Telegram social network.
In Esmansk in particular, the Russian army struck with mortars, Grad multiple rocket launchers and heavy artillery, destroying four houses, a school and a communal hall. However, there were no casualties in the region, according to the same source. After the end of the ceasefire on Saturday at midnight, the Ukrainian general staff had already recorded more than fifty Russian attacks with missiles and rockets during the night.
On Sunday morning, Ukrainian authorities said two people had been killed and nine others injured in the previous 24 hours in the country, despite the announced ceasefire. According to the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a civilian was killed in the Kharkiv region (north-east) and another in the Donetsk region (east). And nine people were injured in three regions.
- Zelensky celebrates the first release of soldiers of the year
Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the release Sunday of 50 Ukrainians by the Russians in favor of an exchange of prisoners, including 33 officers. Among these soldiers released from “Russian captivity” are “defenders of the regions of kyiv and Donetsk, Mariupol and the south of the country”, specified the Ukrainian president. “Our team is working tirelessly to free the Ukrainians,” he added.
“I am particularly grateful to those of our units who feed the exchange fund. All those who capture the enemy on our land give the opportunity to set some Ukrainians free”, added Volodymyr Zelensky.
- Ukraine denies any strike on barracks in Kramatorsk
The Russian army assured on Sunday that it carried out strikes on military barracks in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, and inflicted heavy losses on its adversary in “retaliation” for the Ukrainian bombardment on Makiivka, which killed at least 89 Russian soldiers at New Year. A Ukrainian military official denied it.
“In response to the kyiv regime’s criminal strike in the first minutes of January 2023 […]the Russian forces carried out a retaliatory operation,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily report, claiming to have struck two barracks. The precise date of this strike was not indicated by the ministry.
Ukraine has denied any strikes on barracks in Kramatorsk, saying the Russian claim “does not correspond to the truth”. “Russian troops do not have the capacity to deliver high-precision strikes,” a spokesman for the “Eastern” command of the Ukrainian army, Serguiï Tcherevaty, told the media Suspilne, denouncing a Russian “communication operation”. in the face of Ukrainian successes.