Russia, shaken by Ukrainian strike, said mulling more drones

Russia is preparing to step up its attacks on Ukraine using
Iranian-made exploding drones, according to Ukraine’s president, as Moscow
looks for ways to keep up the pressure on Kyiv after at least 63 Russian
soldiers were killed in an attack in the latest battlefield setback for the
Kremlin’s war strategy.
“We have information that Russia is planning a prolonged
attack by Shaheds (exploding drones),” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in
his nightly video address late Monday.
He said the goal is to break Ukraine’s resistance by
“exhausting our people, (our) air defense, our energy,” more than 10 months
after Russia invaded its neighbor.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be exploring
ways to regain momentum in his flawed war effort, which in recent months has
been undermined by a Ukrainian counteroffensive backed by Western-supplied
weapons. That has brought sharp rebukes in some Russian circles of the
military’s performance.
In the latest embarrassment for the Kremlin, Ukrainian
forces fired rockets at a facility in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian
soldiers were stationed, killing 63 of them, according to Russia’s Defense
Ministry. Other, unconfirmed reports put the death toll much higher.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlin’s forces
since the war began more than 10 months ago.
In the attack, Ukrainian forces fired six rockets from a
HIMARS launch system and two of them were shot down, a Russian Defense Ministry
statement said.
However, the Strategic Communications Directorate of
Ukraine’s Armed Forces claimed Sunday that around 400 mobilized Russian
soldiers were killed in a vocational school building in Makiivka and about 300
more were wounded. That claim couldn’t be independently verified. The Russian
statement said the strike occurred “in the area of Makiivka” and didn’t mention
the vocational school.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show the
apparent aftermath of the strike. An image from Dec. 20 showed the building standing.
An image from Jan. 2 showed the building reduced to rubble. Other days had
intense cloud cover, making seeing the site by standard satellite imagery
impossible.
For the Russian military, the Iranian-made exploding drones
are a cheap weapon which also spreads fear among troops and civilians. The
United States and its allies have sparred with Iran over Tehran’s role in
allegedly supplying Moscow with the drones.
The Institute for the Study of War said that Putin is
looking to strengthen support for his strategy among key voices in Russia.
“Russia’s air and missile campaign against Ukraine is likely
not generating the Kremlin’s desired information effects among Russia’s
nationalists,” the think tank said late Monday.
“Such profound military failures will continue to complicate
Putin’s efforts to appease the Russian pro-war community and retain the
dominant narrative in the domestic information space,” it added.
Zelenskyy warned that in the coming weeks, “the nights may
be quite restless.”
He added that during the first two days of the new year,
which were marked by relentless nighttime drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and
energy infrastructure, the country’s forces shot down more than 80 Iranian-made
drones.
As well as hoping to wear down resistance to Russia’s
invasion, the long-range bombardments have targeted the power grid to leave
civilians at the mercy of biting winter weather as power outages ripple across
the country.
“Every downed drone, every downed missile, every day with
electricity for our people and minimal shutdown schedules are exactly such
victories,” Zelenskyy said.
In the latest fighting, a Russian missile strike overnight
on the city of Druzhkivka in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region
wounded two people, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo
Tymoshenko, reported Tuesday.
Officials said the attack ruined an ice hockey arena
described as the largest hockey and figure skating school in Ukraine.
Overnight Russian shelling was also reported in the
northeastern Kharkiv region and the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region.
In the recently retaken areas of the southern Kherson
region, Russian shelling on Monday killed two people and wounded nine others,
Kherson’s Ukrainian governor, Yaroslav Yanushevich, said Tuesday. He said the
Russian forces fired at the city of Kherson 32 times on Monday.