Moscow says Ukrainian rocket strike kills 63 Russian troops
Kyiv, Jan 2: Ukrainian forces fired rockets at a facility in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian soldiers were stationed, killing 63 of them, Russia's defense ministry said on Monday, in one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlin's forces since the war began more than 10 months ago.
Ukrainian forces fired six rockets from a HIMARS launch system and two of them were shot down, a defense ministry statement said. It did not say when the strike happened.
The strike, using a US-supplied precision weapon that has proven critical in enabling Ukrainian forces to hit key targets, delivered a new setback for Russia which in recent months has reeled from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The Ukrainian military has not directly confirmed the strike, but seemed to acknowledge what appeared to be the same attack that Russian authorities reported.
The Strategic Communications Directorate of Ukraine's Armed Forces claimed Sunday that some 400 mobilized Russian soldiers were killed in a vocational school building in Makiivka and about 300 more were wounded. That claim could not be independently verified. The Russian statement said the strike occurred "in the area of Makiivka" and didn't mention the vocational school.
Meanwhile, Russia deployed multiple exploding drones in another nighttime attack on Ukraine, officials said Monday, as the Kremlin signaled no letup in its strategy of using bombardments to target the country's energy infrastructure and wear down Ukrainian resistance to its invasion.
The barrage was the latest in a series of relentless year-end attacks, including one that killed three civilians on New Year's Eve.
On Monday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 40 drones "headed for Kyiv" overnight. All of them were destroyed, according to air defense forces.
Klitschko said 22 drones were destroyed over Kyiv, three in the outlying Kyiv region and 15 over neighboring provinces.
Energy infrastructure facilities were damaged as the result of the attack and an explosion occurred in one city district, the mayor said. It wasn't immediately clear whether that was caused by drones or other munitions. A wounded 19-year-old man was hospitalized, Klitschko added, and emergency power outages were underway in the capital.
In the outlying Kyiv region a "critical infrastructure object" and residential buildings were hit, Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said.
Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of "energy terrorism" as the aerial bombardments have left many people without heat amid freezing temperatures. Ukrainian officials say Moscow is "weaponizing winter" in its effort to demoralize the Ukrainian resistance.
Ukraine is using sophisticated Western-supplied weapons to help shoot down Russia's missiles and drones, as well as send artillery fire into Russian-held areas of the country.
Moscow's full-scale invasion on February 24 has gone awry, putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin as his ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance. He said in his New Year's address to the nation that 2022 was "a year of difficult, necessary decisions."
Putin insists he had no choice but to send troops into Ukraine because it threatened Russia's security an assertion condemned by the West, which says Moscow bears full responsibility for the war.
Russia is currently observing public holidays through January 8.
Drones, missiles and artillery shells launched by Russian forces also struck areas across Ukraine.
Five people were wounded in the Monday morning shelling of a Ukraine-controlled area of the southern Kherson region, its Ukrainian Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevich said on Telegram.
The Russian forces attacked the city of Beryslav, the official said, firing at a local market, likely from a tank. Three of the wounded are in serious condition and are being evacuated to Kherson, Yanushevich said.
Seven drones were shot down over the southern Mykolaiv region, according to Gov. Vitali Kim, and three more were shot down in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a missile was also destroyed, according to Reznichenko. He said that energy infrastructure in the region was being targeted.
Ukraine's Air Force Command reported Monday that 39 Iranian-made exploding Shahed drones were shot down overnight, as well as two Russian-made Orlan drones and a X-59 missile.
"We are staying strong," the Ukrainian defense ministry tweeted.
A blistering New Year's Eve assault killed at least four civilians across the country, Ukrainian authorities reported, and wounded dozens. The fourth victim, a 46-year-old resident of Kyiv, died in a hospital on Monday morning, Klitschko said.
Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night. The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities, and the unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials.
In Russia, a Ukrainian drone hit an energy facility in the Bryansk region that borders with Ukraine, Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz reported on Monday morning. A village was left without power as a result, he said.
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Bihar has 'failed' on all parameters during 21 years of NDA rule: Tejashwi
Patna (PTI): Launching a frontal attack on the Bihar government, RJD's national working president, Tejashwi Yadav, on Thursday, alleged that the state has "failed" on all parameters during the 21 years of NDA rule.
His remarks came four days ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls in Bihar on March 16. Six candidates—five from the ruling NDA and one from the RJD are in the fray for five Rajya Sabha seats in Bihar.
In a post on X on Thursday, Yadav wrote, "The NDA government failed on all parameters despite years of a double-engine government. Bihar continues to rank at the bottom of most development indicators even after 21 years of NDA rule."
"Bihar is a unique state where the NDA's double-engine government has been in power for decades, yet the state still performs poorly across several socio-economic indicators. Bihar is the poorest state in the country, has the highest migration, the highest levels of crime and corruption, the highest unemployment, the highest level of multidimensional poverty and highest school dropout rate in the country, lowest literacy rate in the country, and the state has the lowest per capita income in the country," he wrote.
He further claimed that Bihar is the state where farmers' income is lowest in the country, lowest per capita consumption in the country, lowest computer literacy in the country, lowest electricity consumption in the country, lowest basic infrastructure in the country, lowest quality education in the country and the lowest industrial units in the country.
Yadav, who is also Leader of Opposition in the state assembly, said the state is lagging in almost every development indicator. He accused the government of avoiding accountability while running the administration through bureaucratic control, state resources and caste politics.
Ironically, despite being lowest on all development parameters, Bihar is leading in buying expensive gas, leading in buying expensive electricity, leading in buying expensive petrol-diesel, and here buying property is more expensive than in Delhi and Mumbai, he alleged.
State BJP spokesperson, Neeraj Kumar, refuted the charges levelled by Yadav and told PTI, "RJD leader should have compared the current situation in Bihar with the period between 1990 and 2005 when the state was governed by Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi. The condition improved only after the NDA government led by Nitish Kumar came to power in 2005."
