Russia states that a 'substantial number' of its warriors were killed in New Year's Eve attack

January 4, 2022: Ukraine killed dozens of Russian service members using U.S.-supplied artillery to reach a base in a part of the country on New Year’s Eve, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Monday.

Sixty-three servicemen died following 4 HIMARS artillery warheads struck a “provisional base,” the Russian Defense Ministry stated on Monday in a Telegram post. Two projectiles were shutting down, the statement stated.

Earlier, a senior Russian-backed official in occupied Donetsk said U.S.-supplied HIMARS had hit a “vocational school” in Makiivka.

“A huge number of dead and affected,” Daniil Bezsonov said on Telegram on Sunday.

While Ukraine is not responsible for the attack, its armed forces stated a cryptic message on Telegram, “As a result of ‘careless handling which heats devices,’ which neglect security measures, and smokingunspecified place, Santa packed regarding 400 corpses of Russian servicemen in bags.”

“About 300 more have marks of varying degrees of severity,” the account added.

On Sunday, the leader of the self-stated Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, stated many civilian facilities had come under Ukrainian fire more than on New Year’s Eve, according to TASS.

Benson criticized the “crowded deployment of personnel,” which he added helped lead to the casualties.

Russian forces have recently been pummeling cities across Ukraine, launching missile and drone attacks on critical civilian infrastructure.

Overnight, the capital Kyiv came under attack from Iranian-made drones. Mayor Vitali Klitschko stated that 22 were destroyed over Kyiv, three in the outlying Kyiv area and 15 over neighbouring provinces.

“As an outcome of the night shelling of the capital, energy infrastructure facilities were damaged. There are trouble power outages in the city,” Klitschko stated in a Telegram post on Sunday night.

The mayor said that energy infrastructure facilities were damaged due to the attack, and an explosion occurred in one city district. It wasn’t immediately clear whether drones or other munitions caused that. A wounded 19-year-old man was hospitalized, Klitschko adds, and emergency power outages were underway in the capital.

Since October, Russia has been carrying out airstrikes on power and water supplies almost weekly.