‘One of Moscow’s Biggest Defeats’ – Ukraine at War Update for Jan 2

Within the first day of halted Russian fuel deliveries via Ukraine, Kyiv and Warsaw lauded the move as one of greatest setbacks to the Kremlin during its nearly three-year invasion, while the Transnistria region of Moldova is already reporting difficulties as a result.

“The Transnistrian region is going through a difficult situation after Tiraspoltransgaz cut off supplies of natural gas and heating, affecting localities and public institutions,” government spokesman Daniel Voda wrote in a social media post.

Russia had been supplying Europe with natural gas via a pipeline that crosses through Ukraine for decades, but Kyiv did not renew the contract that had been generating transit fee revenue ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The agreement expired the last day of 2024.

But the Transnistrian government, representing a breakaway region that has been allied with Moscow ever since the break up of the USSR but lately has been strengthening its ties to the West, put the blame for the fuel shortage squarely on the Kremlin.

“Russian blackmail in the Transnistrian region must stop,” the government spokesman wrote.

Meanwhile, President Volodomyr Zelensky hailed the new era as a crushing blow to Russia and its revenues.

“When Putin was given power in Russia more than 25 years ago, the annual gas pumping through Ukraine to Europe was 130+ billion cubic meters. Today, the transit of Russian gas is 0. This is one of Moscow’s biggest defeats,” Zelensky posted on social media.

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Before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian gas accounted for about 40 percent of such imports in Europe.

“Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses,” Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski echoed those thoughts, posting that the stoppage of those Russian gas exports marked “a new victory after NATO enlargement to Finland and Sweden.”

Said Austrian Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler, “Austria is no longer reliant on Russian gas – and that’s a positive step.” She explained that her country had already shifted to non-Russian suppliers. For example, the Austrian energy giant OMV had ended its relationship with oil and gas provider, Gazprom, Russia’s largest company.

Slovakia’s prime minister, on the other hand, who recently concluded a visit to Moscow and is one of Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin’s only remaining allies in the European Union, claimed on Wednesday that the stoppage of those gas exports will only hurt Europe.

“Halting gas transit via Ukraine will have a drastic impact on us all in the EU but not on the Russian Federation,” Robert Fico said.

Husband and wife, both scientists at a Kyiv university, killed in Moscow’s massive drone attack on the capital

Moscow’s New Year’s Day drone attack on the capital and other Ukrainian regions, murdered two well-know scientists, a husband and wife who both worked at a leading Ukrainian scientific institute.

“A married couple who were both scientists were killed by Russia in a morning attack on Kyiv on the first day of the new year. Prominent neurobiologist Ihor Zyma and his wife, biologist Dr Olesia Sokur, were tragically killed in an enemy UAV strike,” Oksen Lisovyi, the Minister of Education and Science, posted to social media.

“The couple had dedicated nearly their entire lives to science, having worked for many years at the Institute of Biology and Medicine at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv,” the post read.

According to the institute’s website, Dr. Zyma was a Senior Researcher and Associate Professor in Biology, teaching courses in Physiology and Anatomy of Humans and Animals, Anatomy and Physiology of the Central Nervous System, Physiology of the Nervous System and Higher Nervous Activity, Neurophysiology, Physiology of Neural Networks, and Evolution of Behavior and Anthropogenesis.

On New Year’s morning, Russia attacked with 111 attack UAVs of the ‘Shahed’ type, the Air Force reported, along with other types of drones originating in the Russian areas of Bryansk, Orel, Primorsko-Akhtarsk, and occupied Crimea.

The military claimed that 63 attack UAVs had been shot down, 46 Russian drone simulators were destroyed in their locations, while two drones flew back to Russia and Belarus.

At least six other civilians were injured in the airstrikes.

Russia’s gains in Ukraine slowed in December, ISW reports

Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky claimed earlier this week that Russian forces suffered 427,000 casualties in 2024. Meanwhile, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev claimed on Christmas Eve that 440,000 recruits signed military service contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense, “suggesting that Russia is likely recruiting just enough military personnel to replace its recently high casualty rates one for one,” analysts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported.

The ISW said it has enough geolocated evidence to assess that Russian forces advanced a total of 4,168 square kilometers in 2024, meaning that Moscow had yielded about 102 casualties for every square kilometer of territory overtaken.

While ISW analysts said that the monthly attrition rate remained about the same over the month of December, Moscow had a lot less territory to show for it:  Russia gained 593 square kilometers or 18.1 square kilometers per day in December 2024, while, again, the number of daily Russian casualties in December remained similar to the estimated daily casualty rate in November. The Ukrainian General Staff reported a daily Russian personnel casualty average of 1,585 in December, which, if true, would mark the fourth all-time high of Russia’s daily casualty rate since he beginning of its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

“Syrsky stated on December 30 that Russian forces have suffered 1,700 casualties per day over the past week (since December 23), indicating the Russian forces may have suffered an even higher casualty rate in the last few weeks of 2024 even as Russian advances slowed,” the ISW wrote.