Dispatches from Ukraine. Day 314.

As Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues and the war rages on, reliable sources of information are critical. Forbes gathers information and provides updates on the situation.

By Daria Dzysiuk.

On January 3, the General Staff of Ukraine confirmed another successful strike on Russian positions conducted on December 31. This time Ukrainian Armed Forces launched an attack on a manpower and military equipment accumulation area of the enemy near Chulakivka village, in the Kherson region, in which about 500 Russian servicemen were either killed or wounded.

One more torture chamber built by Russian occupation forces was found in liberated Mykolaiv region, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's press center said on January 3. According to the investigation, Russian troops captured one of the private houses in which residents refusing to collaborate with them were illegally detained and brutally tortured for over one month. Later, Ukraine's police services discovered that the torture chamber in question was located in Oleksandrivka village. There, Russians tried to elicit addresses of Ukrainian patriots, in particular resistance movement members, through strangling detained civilians with plastic bags, beating them with heavy objects and subjecting them to electric shock. During the investigation, police officers discovered various torture tools and established the identities of those Ukrainian citizens imprisoned and tortured in Oleksandrivka.

Kherson region. The Russian army shelled towns in Ukraine's Kherson region 79 times on January 2, using artillery, mortars, tanks, and MLRS, the region’s governor, Yaroslav Yanushevych, wrote. Kherson city itself was attacked 32 times. There, Russians targeted a car market, a utility company, private homes and apartment buildings. Over the past 24 hours, two civilians were killed in the region and nine were injured.

Donetsk Region. Russian forces launched a missile attack on the ‘Altair’ ice arena where ‘Donbas’ hockey club trains in Druzhkivka, on January 2, injuring two people, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, Deputy Head of the Office of the President “One rocket hit the city, we know about two wounded civilians so far. Another rocket struck Yakovlivka village. Information is being ascertained,” he commented.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine and other defence units have liberated 40% of the territory captured by the Russian army since February 24 and 28% of overall occupied territories, said Valerii Zaluzhnyy, the Commander-in-Chief of the AFU, on January 1, summing up the year of 2022.

According to Zaluzhnyy, a de-occupied area amounted to about 40,000 square kilometers after liberation of the right bank of the Kherson region. As of today, Ukraine continues to hold Russian forces back on a front that spans 3,786 kilometers. Meanwhile, an active battle line runs for 1,500 kilometers. Zaluzhnyy added that AFU Aviation Forces shot down 1,893 Russian air down, killed over 100,000 Russian troops, destroyed 3,000 tanks, 6,000 armored fighting vehicles, and around 300 combat aircraft and 270 helicopters, since the fighting began.

During an evening video appeal on January 2, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia is planning a prolonged attack on Ukraine with ‘Shahed’ kamikaze drones to exhaust Ukrainian air defense and energy systems. “Only 2 days have passed since the beginning of the year, and the number of Iranian drones shot down over Ukraine already exceeds 80. This number may increase in the near future. We have information that Russia is planning a prolonged attack with ‘Shaheds’. Its bet may be on exhaustion of our people, air defense, energy sector. But we must ensure that this goal of terrorists fails like all the others,” Zelenskyy said.

The governor of Russia's Bryansk Region claimed a Ukrainian drone attacked a local power supply facility on January 2. “An energy supply facility was damaged, and a village left without electricity," he wrote.

In the temporarily occupied town of Berdyansk, in Ukraine's Zaporizhia region, there was an explosion, too. Various Russian news channels reported on the downing of a Ukrainian Unmanned Aerial Vehicle on that site. In Svatovo, in Ukraine's Luhansk region, a Russian ammunition depot was hit on January 2. Ukrainian officials have not taken responsibility for the attack.