January 3, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Ukraine's military on Tuesday alleged another devastating attack on Russian troops had taken place.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said around 500 Russian troops were either killed or wounded in a hit near Chulakivka, a town in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, on New Year's Eve.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian armed forces in the south, told Ukrainian television: "This is one of our achievements in this direction of the front." 

"There will be more because we identify the enemy's locations," she said of the alleged hit.

CNN cannot verify the Ukrainian claim. Moscow has not publicly commented on the Chulakivka claim. 

However, a widely read Russian war blogger known as "Operation Z" said in a Telegram post on Tuesday “there is no f***ing denying” that Ukraine is now targeting barracks and other Russian troop strongholds with HIMARS, a reference to High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. He included Chulakivka in his list of hits on Russian troops he said had taken place in December.

It comes after both Russian and Ukrainian authorities acknowledged a strike that took place just after midnight on New Year’s Day at a vocational school housing Russian conscripts in Makiivka, in the Donetsk region.

The Russian defense ministry on Monday acknowledged the Makiivka attack and claimed that 63 Russian servicemen died, which would make it one of the deadliest single episodes of the war for Moscow’s forces.

Ukraine's military said Tuesday that Russian forces are continuing to focus efforts on offensive actions in the direction of Bakhmut in a bid to take full control over eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The United Kingdom pledged long-term support for Ukraine, adding that work is underway to provide additional equipment in the coming weeks to the embattled nation.

If you're just joining us, here are other key developments:

Russia has kept targeting Ukraine’s energy system and civilian infrastructure, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office, said in a video message on Tuesday summarizing the information on Russian strikes for the past 24 hours.

Power lines and several civilian buildings suffered damage following Russian shelling in the Chervonohryhorivka community of the Dnipropetrovsk region, he said. "The city of Nikopol got hit but the strike fell on the open territory," he said.

The Kyiv region got hit twice with ‘Iskander’ cruise missiles. “A residential area, ice arena and industrial area suffered damage,” he added. “One person was killed and one injured.”

In other details, Tymoshenko said:

Tymoshenko added that Russia was also "shelling energy infrastructure in the eastern and southern Ukraine again," without giving any further details.

Russian forces are continuing to focus efforts on offensive actions in the direction of Bakhmut in a bid to take full control over eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Tuesday.

“Russian occupiers do not abandon their plans to reach the administrative border of Donetsk region. The main efforts are focused on maintaining offensive potential and replenishing losses,” the General Staff said.

The General Staff said Russia continues to maintain a military presence in the border areas of Belarus and Russia, but there are “no signs of the formation of offensive groups.”

Tuesday’s situational update added Russia conducted eight air strikes and shelled Ukraine 18 times with multiple rocket launchers.

Some context on the city: For months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, his advisers and generals have been calling the battles for Bakhmut “fierce” and “difficult.” The Russian advance on the city has left it in ruins but made it a symbol of Ukrainian resistance as it continues to hold on. Zelensky thrust the city onto the world stage as he discussed it during his speech in the US Capitol on Dec. 22, speaking about Bakhmut for 6 minutes.

Ukraine's military shared a video that it claimed shows the destruction of a Russian ammunition warehouse in Svatove in the eastern Luhansk region. 

Serhiy Hayday, the Ukrainian head of Luhansk region military administration, said on Telegram on Monday that Russian forces had been bringing ammunition to occupied Svatove for two weeks.

Some background: Svatove is a strategic hub in Luhansk, which is the Ukrainian region that remains under the most amount of Russian control.

The video, shared by Strategic Communications Department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Tuesday, shows a building with two trucks outside, the moment of impact at night and the warehouse destroyed afterward. The authorities did not say on which day the destruction took place.

The commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine outlined the battles on the Kreminna-Svatove line, in the eastern Luhansk region, in his first phone call of the new year with America’s top general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. 

Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi also thanked Milley for the “foreign-manufactured anti-aircraft missile systems provided with his active assistance.”

He detailed how since Dec. 31, 2022, until Tuesday morning, Russia “launched 14 cruise missiles” at Ukraine and deployed 94 Iranian Shahed-136 drones.

“I told him about changes in the operational and strategic situation, primarily on the land and in the air space of Ukraine,” Zaluzhnyi said on Twitter Tuesday.

Some context: The key Ukrainian city of Kreminna has been occupied by Russian forces since the spring of 2022 and is located on a key north-south road from Svatove, which Russian troops had been using to transport supplies. Losing Kreminna would limit Russia's ability to resupply its troops in the city of Severodonetsk.

Ukraine’s military chief said his forces had managed to hold positions and continue counteroffensive efforts in the direction of the Donetsk region.

He also said Ukraine has “securely” held defensive lines in the Zaporizhzhia direction, in southeastern Ukraine, “and put effort into protecting against the hostile shelling of Kherson, primarily civilians and city's critical infrastructure facilities.”

Satellite images taken by US satellite company Planet Labs show the aftermath of the strike in Makiivka, in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.

The images — which were taken on Dec. 20, 2022 and on Jan. 2, 2023 — purportedly show the building allegedly housing Russian troops before and after the attack, according to Planet Labs. 

The satellite image taken on Jan. 2 shows a building almost completely demolished to the ground. 

According to both Ukrainian and pro-Russian accounts, the strike took place just after midnight on Jan. 1 on a vocational school housing Russian conscripts.

In a rare admission, the Russian Ministry of Defense on Monday said that 63 servicemen had been killed in Makiivka when Ukraine used HIMARS missiles to attack a building where Russian soldiers were quartering.

The Ukrainian military claimed up to around 400 Russian soldiers were killed and a further 300 wounded, and says the exact number is “being clarified.”

Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday detailed allegations of what they called “torture chambers” discovered in a village in the Mykolaiv region and the city of Kherson. 

Mykolaiv's regional prosecutor's office, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and forensic experts with the National Police of Ukraine established the location of an alleged “torture chamber” in the village of Oleksandrivka, in the southern Mykolaiv region, after it was taken back from Russian occupation, according to statements from the regional prosecutor’s office and the SBU.

“According to the investigation data, the representatives of the aggressor country seized the houses in the village and illegally held and brutally tortured local residents who refused to cooperate with the enemy,” according to the Mykolaiv prosecutor's office. 

The office also said that “physical evidence was discovered and seized” during the investigation. 

The SBU alleged in a statement that "Russians forcibly held and brutally tortured local residents who refused to cooperate." 

“They tried to ‘beat out’ the addresses of Ukrainian patriots, in particular members of the resistance movement,” the SBU claimed. 

“The victims were suffocated with plastic bags, beaten with heavy objects and electrical torture was used,” the statement added. “During the inspection of the chamber, law enforcement officers discovered torture tools.” 

The SBU said that Ukrainian citizens who were “illegally detained and tortured by the Russians for a month were found.” 

CNN cannot independently verify the claims made by Ukrainian authorities. 

Another allegation: On Tuesday, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine also reported another “torture chamber” was discovered in the city of Kherson in “one of the police administration buildings, which Russians used to ensure the functioning of the occupation penal authorities.” 

CNN cannot independently verify the claim. 

Russia has previously denied allegations of war crimes and claimed its forces do not target civilians, despite extensive evidence gathered by international human rights experts, criminal investigators and international media in multiple locations. 

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the United Kingdom will continue long-term support for Ukraine and work is underway to "provide further equipment in the coming weeks and months," according to a Downing Street readout of a call between the two leaders on Tuesday afternoon. 

"The leaders discussed the abhorrent drone attacks on Ukraine in recent days, and the Prime Minister said the thoughts of the UK were with the Ukrainian people as they continued to live under such bombardment," a Downing Street spokesperson said. 

Sunak also said that partners of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) are working closely to provide additional equipment requested by Ukraine, according to Downing Street.